Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

DUNDEE CORPORATION (CONSOLIDATED POWERS) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Read a Second time; to be considered Tomorrow.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

Nuclear Warfare

Mr. Zilliacus: asked the Minister of Defence, in view of the fact that the policy of the Government is now not to attempt defence of the whole country against nuclear attack but to concentrate on defending the Anglo-American nuclear bases stationed here, what steps he has taken to inform the nation of this restricted policy and on what occasions; and whether he will make a statement.

The Minister of Defence (Mr. Duncan Sandys): This was stated in the Defence White Paper last April.

Mr. Zilliacus: Is it not a fact that the Minister of Defence, at Canberra on 20th August, declared that as it was impossible to defend this country against nuclear attack, the Government were going to concentrate on the defence of bases only and thanked the people of this country for the loyal way in which they had accepted this harsh necessity? Is not it true that on 26th June the Government admitted that the stationing of Anglo-American bases here would attract nuclear attack? What chance have the people of this country had to say what they think of the Government's policy of attracting nuclear attack and then abandoning the country without defence against nuclear attack?

Mr. Sandys: Hon. Members usually regard themselves as representatives of the people of this country. This policy was stated in the White Paper on Defence which was subsequently approved by the House.

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: In view of the Minister's many statements that there is no defence against nuclear attack on this country, can he say what the Foreign Secretary meant when he told the United Nations Disarmament Sub-Committee that the advent of nuclear weapons had brought the country a new security?

Mr. Sandys: I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman confirms what I have said, that is to say, we have made this quite clear for quite a long time, and I hope that his hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Zilliacus) has taken note of that. As far as the rest of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks are concerned, it does not follow that, because one has no defence, the existence of a powerful deterrent on both sides does not perhaps constitute some measure of security.

Hong Kong (Discussions)

Mr. Rankin: asked the Minister of Defence if he will make a statement on his discussions with the Governor of Hong Kong, in September last, on the subject of the Colony's defences.

Mr. Sandys: My visit in September gave me the opportunity for full discussions with the Governor, the military commanders and the police authorities about defence and internal security problems in Hong Kong.

Mr. Rankin: Is the Minister not aware that during the period of his visit he stated, according to the Manchester Guardian of 16th September, that, while no decisions would be taken in Hong Kong, there would also be no startling announcements? Now, in the month of November, is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to make the startling announcements here that he refrained from making in Hong Kong, and will those startling announcements include a decision to stop the stockpiling of nuclear weapons in South-East Asia?

Mr. Sandys: Hong Kong, of course, is not in South-East Asia, and I have no startling announcements to make.

Mr. Rankin: On a point of order. Surely the Minister responsible for defending the Commonwealth should know more about its geography.

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order. The hon. Member ought to know that.

Military Operations, Oman

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Minister of Defence the cost of the recent combined military operations in Oman.

Mr. Sandys: The best estimate available for the costs of these military operations is about £270,000.

Mr. Hughes: Can the Minister tell us whether the expenditure is being continued and whether the soldiers and the Air Force are still in the neighbourhood? Does not he think that he could make some arrangement by which he could collect this rather substantial sum from the oil companies instead of it having to be paid by the taxpayer?

Mr. Sandys: I do not think that is a large sum to pay for establishing confidence in Britain's word throughout Arabia and the Persian Gulf.

Major Wall: Will my right hon. Friend make it clear that, whatever the cost, Britain intends to support her friends and allies in that part of the world?

Mr. Sandys: I think that deeds speak for themselves.

Guided Weapons Range, The Hebrides

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: asked the Minister of Defence if he is now able to make a statement about the proposed abandonment of, or reduction of expenditure upon, the guided missiles project in the Western Isles.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Minister of Defence if he will state the date on which Her Majesty's Government decided to establish a rocket range in South Uist; what was the original estimate of the likely expenditure; how much money has already been spent; and what economies he proposes.

Mr. Sandys: The Government's decision to set up a guided weapons range in the Hebrides was announced on 27th July, 1955. It would be contrary to

practice to publish precise estimates of the cost of such projects, but it was of the order of £20 million. The preparatory works which have been carried out, or are in hand, amount to something under £500,000.
We are at present considering the possibility of restricting the scope of the scheme and I will make a further statement as soon as possible.

Mr. MacMillan: While appreciating some of the reasons why events, including Sputniks, have made this project abortive and out of date, at the same time will the Minister realise that it has caused the utmost disturbance to local people, that it has put some out of their homes and land, and some out of jobs? Will he now approach his colleagues in the Government Departments and ask them to be less niggardly in promoting major and very necessary schemes of economic development—projects of a permanently useful character and employing local people? Will he at least give them some assurance on that score?

Mr. Sandys: First, what I am now considering has nothing to do with Sputniks. Let me be quite clear about that. I, also, recognise the unfortunate effects of leaving people in a state of uncertainty, and for that reason I am doing everything I can to speed up a decision. I do not think it would be any good my making a partial statement on a subject of this kind, since it might create more uncertainty and more confusion. As regards the general question of bringing industry to the Highlands, though I must say that the first reaction to the approach of some new development in the Hebrides was not universally welcomed, this question is one which is always very much in the mind of the Government. I was glad that when I was Minister of Supply I had the opportunity to bring the atomic scheme to Dounreay, in the very northernmost part of the Highlands.

Mr. MacMillan: The right hon. Gentleman should correct his geography. Dounreay is not anywhere near the Western Islands. It is in the far northeast of Scotland. The second part of my question asked directly whether some kind of restoration of the social and economic life of the Uists could be arranged in view of the disturbance.


chaos and confusion which has been caused. People have been rendered homeless and landless and unemployed. Now, apparently, the project is being virtually abandoned and the local people brushed aside, with no further help from his Ministry. Will the Minister do something definite, at least to restore the damage that has already been done?

Mr. Sandys: In case the hon. Gentleman, unlike myself, has not been to Dounreay, I can tell him that it is near Caithness. On the general question, I think I have spoken with sympathy about any disturbance of mind that may have been caused by the anticipation of changes of plan. I do not think we should exaggerate the disturbance in the livelihood of those people which has taken place.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the Minister aware that, if this gigantic white elephant was to cost £20 million, we all hope that his efforts to restrict this expenditure will be successful? Can he tell us whether it is true, as The Times correspondent said yesterday, that all work on the range is now at a standstill?

Mr. Sandys: I think that the hon. Gentleman should await the full statement which I hope to make.

Mr. Rankin: Is it at a standstill?

Mr. de Freitas: Surely the Minister can answer that question? Is the work at a standstill or is it not? What kind of defence planning is this? A few months ago these men were bundled off because the Ministry could not even wait for an inquiry. What has happened now? What is the big change? Does not the Minister know?

Mr. Sandys: The hon. Member who represents the Western Isles (Mr. Malcolm MacMillan) spoke with a great deal less heat than the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. de Freitas), because I think he understands the situation.

Mr. de Freitas: But the right hon. Gentleman is the Minister of Defence.

Mr. Sandys: I will make a full statement, but I do not think it is any good giving out litle bits of information here and there. Certain work has been carried out. If the hon. Gentleman will

study my Answer, he will see that certain work is going on at the moment. It is not correct to say that everything is at a standstill.

Military Operations, Egypt (Commander-in-Chief's Despatch)

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Minister of Defence why equipment was allowed to deteriorate as mentioned in the despatch of the Commander-in-Chief Allied Forces concerning the operations in Egypt.

Mr. Sandys: The deterioration was due to the length of time the equipment had to remain in the ships. This equipment was loaded as part of the precautionary measures which the Government decided to take after the seizure of the Suez Canal by Egypt.

Mr. Bellenger: Surely there should have been closer liaison between the Chiefs of Staff and the Defence Committee to obviate this deterioration when, in effect, the forces were being held in readiness for what eventually became a military operation? If this equipment is to be carried into the future, surely the right hon. Gentleman sees that his own defence efforts will be rendered practically nugatory if we have to undertake such operations again?

Mr. Sandys: With time most things deteriorate. All that the report said was that after a period of time it was necessary to take these vehicles and other equipment off the ships and, among other matters, to recharge the batteries and so on, which was a natural thing to do. That is not a grave reflection on the organisation. All it shows is that the equipment and vehicles were put on in very good time, and that the need to use them did not arise before the time when they had to be unloaded and refitted and recharged.

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Minister of Defence whether he will make a statement on the specific organisational, tactical and technical matters forming the subject matter of the separate recommendations of the Commander-in-Chief Allied Forces in connection with the operations in Egypt.

Mr. Sandys: These detailed recommendations for the conduct of limited war operations are being carefully studied by the Service authorities concerned.

Mr. Bellenger: All I am asking is whether, in view of the rather serious deficiencies shown in the despatch which has been published, the right hon. Gentleman can, without prejudicing security or the national interest, say anything more about the separate memorandum attached to the despatch?

Mr. Sandys: In the main it contained recommendations of a general character, and the opinions and advice of General Keightley about the conduct of limited war operations of a general kind for the future. I do not think they would be appropriate for publication. They are in the nature of advice from serving officers to the Service Departments and the Chiefs of Staff.

Mr. Shinwell: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman a question? Surely he detected in General Keightley's despatch some grave criticisms of defence preparations preceding the Suez affair? Can he say who in the Defence Department and Service Departments were responsible for those defects, and whether any disciplinary action was taken or is contemplated?

Mr. Sandys: I have already answered a Question on that precise subject put to me, last week I think, by the right hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger).

Mr. Shinwell: I do not know anything about that Answer. Will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to furnish me and other hon. Members with the Answer? Is he taking any action against those who were, according to the criticisms made by General Keightley, responsible for the defects?

Mr. Sandys: I will send the right hon. Gentleman a copy of the reply.

Cyprus

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Minister of Defence whether, in view of the statement in the despatch of the Commander-in-Chief Allied Forces that the operations in Egypt were prejudiced owing to the limited port facilities in Cyprus, he will make a statement concerning the future of Cyprus as a base for operational activities in the Eastern Mediterranean should events necessitate such action.

Mr. Sandys: Cyprus has no large port, and we have no plans to make one.

Mr. Bellenger: In view of the large amount of money which has been spent in Cyprus in preparing there one of our bases in the Eastern Mediterranean, is the right hon. Gentleman going to say nothing more than the bland statement which he has just made, that Cyprus has been written off as a military base?

Mr. Sandys: I was talking about a harbour. The main military usefulness of Cyprus is not as a naval base or necessarily as a jumping-off ground for military operations.

Mr. Bevan: Has not it been stated over and over again in this House in debates on Cyprus that the reason we could not allow it to be a N.A.T.O. base was that we might want it for ourselves to operate on our own initiative in the Middle East? Now we are told that it is no use either as an air base or as a port.

Mr. Sandys: I do not think the right hon. Gentleman listened to what I said. I did not say anything about an air base. I said that the main military usefulness of Cyprus is not as a naval base or as a jumping-off ground for military operations. By "military" I meant the despatch of land forces from Cyprus. The right hon. Gentleman knows well enough that one does not use harbours to fly off aircraft unless they are seaplanes.

Mr. P. Williams: Does my right hon. Friend's Answer mean that the commitment undertaken earlier this year to invest a certain amount of money in a deep-water port has now been changed altogether? [Laughter.]

Mr. Sandys: Hon. Gentlemen opposite need not laugh about that. The primary purpose of that scheme, which has nothing to do with me, was to provide better civilian harbour facilities for the island and people of Cyprus.

Mr. Strachey: In view of his statement, would the Minister of Defence now state clearly that there is no further requirement for Cyprus as a British army base—a military base—quite apart from whatever requirements there may or may not be for a N.A.T.O. base for air operations of a deterrent character?

Mr. Sandys: I am not going to say that there are no circumstances in which Cyprus might not be used for


military purposes or as a base for military purposes. What I am prepared to say is that our prime need in the use of Cyprus as a base is to enable us to have facilities to operate aircraft in support of the Bagdad Pact.

Mr. Bellenger: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment.

United States Aircraft (United Kingdom)

Mr. Beswick: asked the Minister of Defence what consultations he has had with the United States authorities regarding the implementation by United States aircraft based in the United Kingdom of the readiness of long-range nuclear bombers to take off within a fifteen-minute warning; and to what extent our other defence arrangements have been geared to this new situation.

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Minister of Defence in what circumstances his approval was obtained for United States aircraft from British bases carrying hydrogen bombs to be in the air twenty-four hours a day.

Mr. Sandys: This is a matter for the United States Strategic Air Command. It does not involve any change in our own defence arrangements.

Mr. Beswick: Does the Minister of Defence, responsible for the defence of this country, mean to say that it is not of concern to the people here that there are in this country long-range bombers ready to take off within fifteen minutes to deliver the nuclear deterrent? Are these long-range nuclear bombers to be placed upon this knife-edge of readiness without any other precautions being taken to protect our civilian population?

Mr. Sandys: We agreed—that is to say, the Labour Government agreed—that these American air bases should be set up in Great Britain. If they are to be there, and if they are to serve a purpose, I should have thought that the higher their state of readiness the better for all concerned. As for the second part of the supplementary question, as the hon. Gentleman knows quite well, there is a firm undertaking by the United States Government that these bases will not be

used for military operations except in agreement with the British Government.

Mr. Allaun: Does not this mean that an American general could signal his planes which were already in the air, and Russian and British cities could be devastated even before the British Cabinet had had time to meet? Who controls the fate of our country? If someone misinterprets a situation or a signal, will it not then be too late?

Mr. Sandys: What I have already said is that we have a firm promise from the United States that they will not use these bases for military operations except in agreement with the British Government, and we trust them.

Mr. P. Williams: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that it would be valuable if the Royal Air Force could be at the same state of readiness?

Mr. Sandys: It would, no doubt, cause alarm among hon. Gentlemen opposite.

Mr. Shinwell: Does the right hon. Gentleman say that, in face of a changing situation and new statements made by those responsible for U.S. aircraft in this country, there is no consultation between the U.S. military authorities and his Department? Can they do what they please, apart from the assurances given about the future?

Mr. Sandys: They can do what they please about their state of readiness, their training and their flying, but if it comes to the thing which really matters, which is active operations from bases in Great Britain, there is the agreement which ensures that we and they have to come to a joint decision.

Mr. Beswick: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that when joint agreement was reached in 1948 the situation was entirely different? This type of aircraft just had not been built. This type of deterrent was not in existence. The kind of agreement valid in 1948 surely does not apply to a situation in which we have these machines ready at fifteen minutes' notice to take off to wipe out whole countries.

Mr. Sandys: Surely the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that the nuclear bomb did not exist when the agreement was made. Of course it did.

Redundancy (Compensation Scheme)

Mr. Beswick: asked the Minister of Defence if he is aware that his decision with regard to gratuities payable to those who leave the Regular Services as redundant and the Royal Auxiliary Air Force on disbandment, is being implemented in a most narrow and niggardly way, and that this is causing dissatisfaction to individuals and makes it difficult for hon. Members to respond to the appeals made by him to assist in recruitment of new forces; and if he will take steps to ensure a more liberal interpretation of his policy by all Departments.

Mr. Sandys: I think that it will be generally agreed that the compensation scheme is generous and is being administered in a generous spirit. If there are any cases where it is thought that the treatment has not been fair, I will certainly have them looked into.

Mr. Beswick: Will the Minister look into details which I have sent to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air concerning men who have left the Royal Air Force as redundant and who, because they have joined either B.E.A. or B.O.A.C., have been denied their gratuities on redundancy? Will he also look at those cases, of which I have sent details, of men who, having left the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, have been denied their bounty because they have shown exceptional keenness and joined another voluntary arm?

Mr. Sandys: I will most certainly look into those cases myself.

Service Pensions

Dame Irene Ward: asked the Minister of Defence what arrangements he is making for the preparation of schemes of pensions increases to assist retired Service pensioners.

Mr. Sandys: I have nothing to add to the reply given yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Dame Irene Ward: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it will not help his recruiting campaign if those who have already served their country in Her Majesty's Forces are not treated fairly? Will he bear in mind that widows' pensions are scandalously low? May I ask

him whether he wants me to encourage him or to attack him to make him do his job properly in the Cabinet?

Mr. Sandys: I should welcome any attention from the hon. Lady.

Gibraltar

Mr. G. Jeger: asked the Minister of Defence whether he is now in a position to make a statement on the future of Gibraltar.

Mr. Sandys: I do not know what kind of statement the hon. Member has in mind.

Mr. Jeger: If the right hon. Gentleman will do me the honour of looking at the OFFICIAL REPORT of a few months ago, he will discover that I asked the same Question in the summer and received the stalling Answer that he was not then in a position to make a statement, but would do so in due course, about the future of the dockyards and our defence position in Gibraltar, which is causing considerable uncertainty to those who work there and to the inhabitants of that very loyal Colony.

Mr. Sandys: When the hon. Gentleman referred to a statement about the future of Gibraltar, that seemed to be a rather wider subject. I want to make it clear that Gibraltar is British, its inhabitants wish to remain British, and there is no question of discussing its future any more than the future of Portland Bill. As I explained to the hon. Member in reply to his earlier Question—it was not a stalling Answer—I have had full discussions with the Governor and the Service commanders and I think that we have made satisfactory arrangements for the defence of Gibraltar.

Mr. Jeger: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain what the decision was?

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPLOYMENT

Building and Contracting Industries

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Labour if he will give the number of building trade workers unemployed at the latest convenient date and the comparable figure for 1956; and what are the future prospects in respect to the employment of building trade workers.

The Minister of Labour and National Service (Mr. Iain Macleod): On 14th October, 1957, there were 32,500 unemployed people whose last employment was in the building and contracting industries, compared with 25,700 a year earlier. During the 12 months ending in September last the numbers employed fell by 31,000. There may be some further reduction in the numbers employed during the coming months but this will not necessarily be accompanied by a corresponding rise in unemployment.

Mr. Dodds: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, with many other people, I sincerely hope he is right and that there will not be any considerable increase in unemployment in the building trade?

Industrial Disputes

Captain Pilkington: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will make a statement on Government policy in relation to the possibility of courts of inquiry replacing the present system of arbitration tribunals in industrial disputes or, alternatively, of the tribunals publishing the reasons for their recommendations.

Mr. Iain Macleod: The purpose of a court of inquiry is to inquire into the causes and circumstances of a dispute and to report thereon to the Minister. A court of inquiry may of course make suggestions to bring the dispute to an end but an inquiry is no substitute for arbitration, the purpose of which is to settle the dispute by making an award. Tribunals are free to give the reasons for their awards but in practice they rarely do so.

Captain Pilkington: As it is important not only that justice should be done but that it should be seen to be done, would not it be better if reasons were given a little more frequently?

Mr. Macleod: There are arguments both ways. Tribunals often feel that if they pinpoint certain reasons they might add to or re-open the controversy which led to the arbitration. However, where they wish to pinpoint a special matter—as, for example, the provincial bus disputes, where the tribunal said that the award was deliberately linked to the differential—then I welcome that identification, and I should certainly be very glad if that were done.

Mr. Lee: Will the right hon. Gentleman agree, on reflection, that the amount

of interference by the Government in our industrial negotiation machinery has already been sufficiently disastrous without the appearance of any crackpot ideas of this sort?

Mr. Macleod: I do not accept anything of the sort.

Working Hours

Captain Pilkington: asked the Minister of Labour if he will consider the desirability of legislation to make unlawful trade union practice in certain unions and certain areas of fining men who wish to work longer hours.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I am, I think, aware of the considerations that my hon. and gallant Friend has in mind, but I do not consider that this is a matter for legislation.

Captain Pilkington: While agreeing with my right hon. Friend that legislation would probably not be a desirable thing in this case, may I ask him whether he agrees that it is most regrettable that at the time when greater productivity is so important for everybody the A.E.U. in Sheffield should fine people who are willing to work longer hours?

Mr. Macleod: Yes, I deplore many things, but I am sure that when members of an association, whether a trade union, political party or golf club, make rules and people do not like them, it is for the members themselves to change those rules. I do not think that we can do it from the House of Commons.

Miss Herbison: Is the Minister aware that this must be of purely academic interest to the hon. and gallant Member, since by no stretch of the imagination can it be thought that he will ever be brought before such a tribunal for working too long hours in the House?

Captain Pilkington: That applies to us all and, with great respect to the hon. Lady, she should remember the example of the pot calling the kettle black.

Foundry Goggles (Committee's Report)

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Minister of Labour when the Report of the Joint Advisory Committee on Foundry Goggles will be published.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour and National Service (Mr. Robert Carr): It is proposed to publish the Report when research and development work which is now in progress as recommended by the Committee enables us to give more comprehensive and authoritative advice than is at present possible. Meanwhile copies of the Report are being sent to all the organisations interested in this problem.

Mr. Allaun: Does the Parliamentary Secretary realise that trade union representatives are concerned and impatient about the delay? Could not the Report be published before Christmas?

Mr. Carr: I can assure the hon. Member that we are anxious to have the Report published, but whereas the Committee came to the general conclusion that plastic was to be preferred to glass for these protective goggles, further research work is required for specific advice to be given about the form of plastic. Before we publish a final Report we want to be able to have that specific advice.

International Labour Organisation (Convention)

Mr. Benn: asked the Minister of Labour how the United Kingdom delegate voted on the Convention and recommendations concerning the protection and integration of indigenous and other tribal and semi-tribal populations in independent countries at the General Conference of the International Labour Organisation.

Mr. Iain Macleod: The United Kingdom Government delegates abstained on both the Convention and the recommendation to which the hon. Member refers.

Mr. Benn: Is it not a rather regrettable position, in view of the fact that this Convention covered provisions for land, recruitment and conditions of labour for indigenous and tribal people, education and administrative questions, and that the French and Belgian Governments, and even General Franco's Government, supported the Convention? Is there really any justification for the British Government delegates abstaining?

Mr. Macleod: Yes, I think there is. Part of the answer is given by the hon. Member himself, because other Governments—for example, Canada and

Australia—which are more concerned with this Convention and recommendation, also abstained, as did a great number of countries. Although we were in sympathy, as we made clear, with the object of both the Convention and the recommendation, we thought that it went too wide and was inappropriate because it included, for example, matters relating to land, education and public health within the scope of an I.L.O. convention.

Messrs Courtaulds and British Celanese, Derbyshire (Merger)

Mr. Champion: asked the Minister of Labour what steps are being taken to find alternative employment for the people of the Spondon area of Derbyshire made redundant by the merger of Messrs. Courtaulds and British Celanese and the recession in the rayon industry.

Mr. Iain Macleod: The firm has given my local officers full facilities to register redundant workers at the factory in advance of discharge, Over 1,400 have left the firm's employment since September and the majority of the 107 who are still registered as unemployed are being considered for employment by other firms who have notified vacancies.

Mr. Champion: I thank the Minister for that reply. Will he devote his special attention to the fact that a number of the staff who have been made redundant are senior staff, such as chemists, engineers and higher administrative staff, of the age group of forty-five and upwards, and that they are in an exceptionally difficult position? Will he give that matter his special attention?

Mr. Macleod: I have looked at that side of the matter. I think that my technical and scientific register may be able to help, but only a small number—I believe twenty-six—have so far applied. I think that my Answer and the hon. Member's Question may help to draw attention to the position.

Pottery Industry (Survey)

Dr. Stress: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is now able to state when the survey on the pottery industry will be completed; and whether he will give an assurance that the report will be printed with as much detail as possible.

Mr. Carr: The survey team is now engaged in the preparation of this report. The question of publication cannot be settled before the report has been received and studied, but I will see that the hon. Member's point is kept in mind.

Dr. Stross: I thank the Parliamentary Secretary for that Answer. Will he bear in mind that this type of report will be of very great interest not only to other industries in this country but to industries all over the world, and that we shall look forward to having it published in full detail?

Mr. Carr: Certainly. I think that the hon. Member can be assured of that.

Joint Industrial Councils

Mr. Awbery: asked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that in the setting up of joint industrial councils the Government contemplated that agreements reached by industrial councils should carry with them the same obligation of observance as exists in the case of other agreements between employers' associations and trade unions, and that this has become the basis of negotiations by joint councils; under what arrangement this has been modified; and what Government Departments are affected by this change.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I have no knowledge of the introduction of any changes or modifications affecting agreements reached between employers' associations and trade unions. The last part of the Question does not therefore arise.

Mr. Awbery: Is the Minister aware that the recent action of the Government falls far below the standard of negotiations set up between the trade union movement and the employers? Is he aware that four years after the First World War the Agricultural Wages Act was destroyed by the Government, and that the trade unionists feel that this Government are taking steps to destroy the negotiating machinery set up after years of strenuous work by them?

Mr. Macleod: I know that there is a difference of opinion upon this matter between the two sides of the House, but I am quite certain that no such interference as the hon. Member suggests has in fact been made. In regard to the particular instance of the National Health

Service Whitley Council, which is in his mind, it was the intention of Parliament, for special reasons, with which the House is familiar, that the Minister should be in the position of exercising final approval of the recommendation, and not the decision, that was reached.

Mr. Collins: asked the Minister of Labour if he will write to the joint secretaries of all joint industrial councils informing them that the Government have no intention of interfering with any joint decisions reached by joint industrial councils affecting wages or conditions of labour.

Mr. Iain Macleod: No, Sir. I believe the position is perfectly clear to them already.

Mr. Collins: Speaking as a member of a joint industrial council, may I ask the Minister to accept as a fact that doubt and confusion has been caused by various Government statements? Will he, therefore, remove that doubt by making it clear—as I think is his intention—that he has no intention of interfering with decisions of joint industrial councils?

Mr. Macleod: I think that I have made that clear. The hon. Member has great experience of this matter. He is on a joint industrial council, and he knows that he is there negotiating with his own and his colleagues' money. Whatever agreement he comes to with the trade unions concerned has no more to do with either myself or any other Minister of the Crown than what he chooses to pay his secretary. It is entirely a matter for the people concerned, and therefore the case of Government intervention does not arise.

Mr. Robens: Do the Government propose to change the composition of Whitley Councils in order to bring them into line with what he has now said?

Mr. Macleod: No. Considering the question apart from the Whitley Council field for the moment, the Government play no part in the great field of industrial councils. In many cases, such as in the Civil Service, the management side is composed of Government representatives, and therefore they are also the representatives of the employers. It is only in the special case to which I make special


reference that Parliament—not the Government—has laid down the special position of the Minister, and he must fulfil his duty as each case comes to him.

Mr. Robens: But surely, if it is the intention of the Government not to grant any increase which might be recommended by a Whitley Council, might not it be better for the Government to deal directly with the staff side, in which case every agreement arrived at would be accepted?

Mr. Macleod: But we have made it clear from this Box that that is not the case.

National Union of Bank Employees, Scotland

Mr. Rankin: asked the Minister of Labour if he has yet received a copy of a resolution from the Scottish section of the National Union of Bank Employees; if he will state its terms; and what action he proposes to take.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I have received through the Secretary of State for Scotland a copy of the resolution, the terms of which are as follows:
This meeting of Scottish Bank staffs calls upon the managements of the Royal Bank of Scotland and the British Linen Bank to meet representatives of the National Union of Bank Employees for the purpose of establishing mutually acceptable negotiating machinery.
The resolution is addressed to the two banks concerned and does not call for action by my Department.

Mr. Rankin: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the two banks concerned are refusing to recognise the Scottish secretary of the bank employees in matters which should be negotiated between the two bodies? Does not he agree that this is contrary to all accepted trade union practice, and will not he indicate his disapproval of the attitude of the two banks concerned?

Mr. Macleod: No, Sir. I have answered the hon. Member's Question, which calls for no action from me—and his supplementary question goes much wider. As I understand it, the position remains the same, both on behalf of the banks and the union, as it was when we tried to bring them together a year ago.

Mr. Robens: Will the Minister again consult the chairmen of the five banks in

order to bring about some solution in relation to the National Union of Bank Employees, which holds a fairly large membership in those banks? Does not he agree that this is a matter where his personal intervention could be of very great value?

Mr. Macleod: I am always ready to look at the position again. I do not want to go into the matter by way of question and answer, but I would point out that the supplementary question put only one side of the matter, and that there is another which is also strongly felt.

Garment Making Industries, London

Mr. Collins: asked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that more than 5,000 of the 20,000 workers in the garment manufacturing trade in London are wholly unemployed and the remainder working only three days per week; and what steps he proposes to take to provide alternative employment for these skilled workers.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I am unable to understand the basis of the hon. Member's figures. The number of insured employees in the garment making industries in London is estimated at 134,400. Of these the latest complete figures show that on 14th October, 1,012 adults and 39 boys and girls were wholly unemployed. Provisional figures for 11th November show that 1,418 adults were then wholly unemployed. In addition 1,700 men and women were thought to be losing at least one day's work a week. My local officers are doing all they can by submitting wholly unemployed workers to suitable vacancies.

Mr. Collins: Is the Minister aware that the situation is deteriorating so rapidly that it may account for the difference between the figures which he has quoted and those supplied to me by the National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers about their members? Three firms, employing 1,250 workers, have completely shut down and the Master Tailors Association says that 90 per cent. of its 10,000 workers are on short-time. It is a serious situation, and I should be glad if the Minister would have another look at it.

Mr. Macleod: I will certainly have another look at it, but I am sure that the hon. Member's figures must be a very long way out. The figures that I have given are for 11th November, and therefore there cannot have been a very steep deterioration.

Mr. C. Howell: Would the Minister agree that the difference in the figures may well be accounted for by the fact that the figures he has given are those of people registered, whereas the figures in the Question include women who get no benefits and therefore do not bother to register?

Mr. Macleod: No, the figures are too far apart to be accounted for in that way. The difference is twenty-five times.

Regular Officers (Civilian Prospects)

Mr. Atkins: asked the Minister of Labour what steps he has taken to ensure that Regular officers who have to make up their minds whether to volunteer for early retirement, or who face premature termination, are given adequate information about the prospects in civil life.

Mr. Iain Macleod: In close co-operation with my Service colleagues, I have made arrangements for specially selected officers of my Department to take part in a series of lectures and individual interviews which the Services are at present conducting at stations both in this country and overseas. These lectures and interviews have been going on since the middle of September and the present round is due to be completed by the end of this month. Officers who may be affected by redundancy are thus being given the chance of receiving early information and advice about the possibilities in civilian life if they should leave the Services.

Mr. Atkins: I thank my right hon. Friend for his attitude in this matter. May I ask him to consider making this a permanent feature of the services provided by his Department, because the knowledge that help will be given at the end of his Service years will be of considerable help to a recruit?

Mr. Macleod: That is true. It is one of the reasons why we have started this scheme, and will keep it going as long as necessary.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL SERVICE

Science and Engineering Graduates

Dr. King: asked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of recommendation No. 7 of the Willis-Jackson Report, he will now grant exemption from National Service to science and technology graduates entering establishments of further education.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I understand the recommendation in the Willis-Jackson Report will mean that science and engineering graduates with second class honours degrees should be granted indefinite deferment on the same conditions as men with first class honours, that is on taking any employment for which a science or engineering degree is required. I have received a similar proposal from the Federation of British Industries and have referred it to my Technical Personnel Committee for its advice.

Dr. King: While thanking the Minister for that sympathetic Answer, may I ask him to bear in mind that we already exempt science graduates for teaching, some arts graduates for teaching and first-class science honours graduates for teaching in technical institutions, that there is a shortage of science teachers in technical institutions, and that this would be an important contribution to the expansion of technical education?

Mr. Macleod: Yes, that is why I have asked my Technical Personnel Committee, which will be considering this matter in the course of the next week or two, to study this proposal.

Personal Case

Mr. Hayman: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will reconsider his decision not to grant deferment of National Service to the young man who was the subject of a letter from the Parliamentary Secretary on 8th November to the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne.

Mr. Iain Macleod: No, Sir. I am afraid I cannot justifiably alter the decision.

Mr. Hayman: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he told me last week that about 100,000 men were called up for National Service each year, and that


the Defence White Paper says that a total of 375,000 in the Armed Forces will he sufficient in four years' time? In that case, does not he agree that a man who is working seriously and who has great hopes of getting his Higher National Certificate ought to be granted ordinary deferment to enable him to gain that certificate?

Mr. Macleod: As the hon. Member knows, the man was granted deferment for the period of his apprenticeship and for a period to try to qualify for his Higher National Certificate. It is because he failed that examination that that part of his deferment cannot be continued. It would be more satisfactory if the hon Member would come and talk to me privately about the case.

Recruits (Tuberculin Tests)

Mr. Hastings: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will introduce a pilot scheme by which all recruits for the Services who are willing are subjected to tuberculin tests, and negative reactors urged to accept B.C.G. vaccination, before entering the Services.

Mr. Iain Macleod: No, Sir. Suitable facilities are already available to men in the Armed Forces for tuberculin tests and B.C.G. vaccination.

Mr. Hastings: Would it be worth while to try to press strongly for a pilot scheme? I know that the Minister fully realises that tuberculosis contracted in the Armed Forces represents a very heavy loss to the country, both in manpower and finance.

Mr. Macleod: Yes. I think that the position is satisfactory in the Armed Forces, but, as I understand the hon. Member, he is suggesting bringing this in at an earlier stage than that of the medical boards. I do not think that that is practicable, because medical boards were brought together for a special purpose, and they could not do the ordinary follow-up after seventy-two hours, and so on, which would be necessary.

Oral Answers to Questions — EGYPT (DISMISSED BRITISH OFFICIALS)

Mr. H. Fraser: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the fact that ex-gratia loans have

now been made against sequestrated assets to refugees from Egypt, and further, that the British Government has asked the Anglo-Egyptian Resettlement Board to give relief in cases of distress to the ex-Egyptian officials expelled in 1951, Her Majesty's Government will now consider extending this parity of esteem, as more than six years have elapsed and as the claims of these officials continue to be pressed with the Egyptian Government, by the granting of ex-gratia loans to them against such claims.

Mr. Dance: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will consider granting ex-gratia loans to those former British officials of the Egyptian Government who were expelled in 1951.

Mr. E. Johnson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what action has been taken by Her Majesty's Government to give financial or other assistance to British subjects who were formerly employed by the Egyptian Government and were dismissed by them in 1951; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Janner: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware of the unsatisfactory position in regard to the claims of British officials dismissed by the Egyptian Government in 1951; and what steps he is taking to ensure that their demands be met.

The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. D. Ormsby-Gore): The action taken by Her Majesty's Government to assist the former British officials dismissed by the Egyptian Government in 1951 was fully described in reply to Questions from my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) and the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds) on 30th October. I am afraid that I have nothing to add to that reply and to the reply given more recently on 13th November in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Kershaw).

Mr. Fraser: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that this is a matter which is now six years old and which represents a monstrous action by the Government, for two reasons: first, that these people were expelled because of British action and, secondly, that negotiations were broken off because of the failure of British action? Would he agree that the


debt which this Government owes to these people is precisely similar to that owed to those people expelled last year by the Egyptian Government to whom ex-gratia loans have been made?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Everyone in this House and people all over the country have the deepest sympathy with these persons, but it is not true to say that it is a monstrous action on the part of Her Majesty's Government. We regard this as a very unfortunate action on the part of the Egyptian Government. There is a most important matter of principle involved here. If, every time a foreign Government repudiates its obligations, Her Majesty's Government undertook to honour those obligations, we should be in a very difficult position. In previous Answers I have tried to explain why the people expelled in 1951 are not entirely on a par with those thrown out in 1956.

Mr. Janner: Would the right hon. Gentleman think it proper, as so many of these people are getting on in years, to let them have loans in the meanwhile, because I understand that the amount due to them has been agreed?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: No, that is not so. The amount due to them has not been agreed, but I would say that they have been incredibly patient in this matter.

Mr. Fraser: Hear, hear.

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: We all accept that—

Mr. Fraser: Thirteen of them have died.

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: —but there are talks going on in Rome at this moment in which their case is being raised with the Egyptian delegation. I ask them to exercise their patience for just a little longer to see if we can get a satisfactory outcome.

Mr. Dance: Would my right hon. Friend consider augmenting his sympathy by a little action and real help for these people, because they do need it.

Mr. Nicholson: Will not my right hon. Friend recognise that this group of people are in a particular and peculiar position in that the Egyptian Government has a contractual obligation towards them? Does he recognise that they come

at the very top of the list and, in view of that, will not he consider accepting the responsibility of the Egyptian Government towards them; because whatever money is extracted from the Egyptian Government will finally be earmarked for them?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: If, as a result of our discussions with the Egyptian delegation, we get an agreement about what they are prepared to pay to the British Government, of course these people will be deserving of the highest priority. I have always said that.

Mr. Younger: Will not the Minister appreciate that the distinction he is insisting on drawing between the 1951 and 1956 victims seems to many people on this side of the House to be highly formalistic and lacking in humanity? Will not he take this matter up with his right hon. and learned Friend and ask that it be considered further?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I will certainly take it up, but if the right hon. Gentleman looks at the reply I gave on 30th October, he will see that there were fairly substantial differences.

Mr. Fraser: In view of the not very satisfactory nature of the reply given by my right hon. Friend, I propose to endeavour to raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — HUNGARY (BRITISH SUBJECTS' CLAIMS)

Mr. H. Fraser: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, following the agreement reached with the Hungarian Government in 1956, the Foreign Compensation Committee has been empowered by Order in Council to determine and assess claims for losses or expropriations suffered by British subjects in Hungary; and when its work will be completed.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Ian Harvey): The Answer to the first part of the Question is "No, Sir"; and to the second, that once the Order in Council has been made, the date of completion of the work of the Foreign Compensation Commission under this Order will depend on the date of completion of Hungarian payments.

Mr. Fraser: Would not my hon. Friend consider it now, as more than a year has elapsed, and more than six years have elapsed since the expropriation of British subjects? Would it not be as well to set on foot measures to have claims investigated? Otherwise there will be more examples similar to those of the Egyptian claimants who are rapidly dying off.

Mr. Harvey: Regarding putting the matter on foot, drafting work is still in progress, but it is complicated. The question of laying an Order does not cover the payments. What governs the distribution is the payments by the Hungarians which inevitably will take some time. That is not affected by the laying of the Order.

Mr. Fraser: Surely it is important to assess these claims while the people are still living and their memories are still fresh? Surely investigations should be started now?

Mr. Harvey: The assessment of the claims has been going on for a considerable time. The Question referred to the laying of the Order.

Oral Answers to Questions — FORMER BRITISH CONSULATE, NICE (STAFF)

Mr. Teeling: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the result of the appeal by the staff of the former British Consulate at Nice to the French courts to obtain a larger sum as compensation for dismissal by Her Majesty's Government than Her Majesty's Government was prepared to pay; and what steps he is taking to see that they either obtain other work or are covered by French social security laws against unemployment and illness.

Mr. Ian Harvey: The case brought by the former employees of the British Consulate-General in Nice was yesterday dismissed by the French court. The closure of the Consulate-General at Nice resulted from the call for reduction in expenditure on the Foreign Service and it has therefore not been found possible to provide other work for the staff concerned. Employers' contributions under the French Social Security Service were paid for both British and French employees and all are covered for a period of three months against illness, but only

the French employees can qualify for unemployment benefit under the regulations.

Mr. Teeling: Does not my hon. Friend realise that The Times today states:
The magistrate based his dismissal of the case upon the absence of any attempt at conciliation between the parties to the suit, as required by the rules of the French labour code. The British Government were not represented in court when the case was argued a fortnight ago.
Can my hon. Friend tell me why it is that almost the whole staff at Nice, from the Vice-Consul down—including one member who has been in the Service for 23 years—have all complained that they are not getting enough compensation for having been dismissed? Why is it that the Government are so unwilling to help our people in France and are letting them down for what seem to be sheer mercenary reasons?

Mr. Harvey: Her Majesty's Government do not accept the jurisdiction of the court, because this is essentially a domestic affair concerning the Foreign Office and Foreign Office staff. I have dealt with the other point raised by my hon. Friend in previous Answers.

Mr. Teeling: In view of the completely unsatisfactory reply from my hon. Friend, I beg leave to bring up the whole matter on the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — CUBA (COMPENSATION CLAIM)

Mr. Teeling: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how far he has been able to obtain compensation for Mr. Topham from the Cuban Government; and what is the present position concerning the trial of Mr. Topham's assailants.

Mr. Ian Harvey: I regret that no compensation has been paid to Mr. Topham so far. However, the Cuban authorities have now sent additional "interrogatories" to their Embassy in London and I hope that when these "interrogatories" have been completed and returned it will be possible to make further progress with this case. My hon. Friend can rest assured that we shall continue to press the matter.

Mr. Teeling: Does my hon. Friend realise that this poor man's case has gone on for over a year? Is not it time the Government did something about these evasive replies? Has my hon. Friend made any reply to the Cuban Government?

Mr. Harvey: My hon. Friend knows perfectly well the problems of this case and that responsibility for them lies squarely on the shoulders of the Cuban Government. We have made that clear to them.

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE EMPLOYEES (DISPUTE)

Mr. Gaitskell (by Private Notice): Mr. Gaitskell (by Private Notice) asked the Minister of Health whether he will make a statement on the dispute of administrative and clerical workers in the National Health Service and whether he will indicate what steps he is taking to avoid adverse consequences to treatment of hospital patients.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Derek Walker-Smith): I made a full statement to the House on the general question on 6th November.
In reply to the particular point raised in the latter part of the right hon. Gentleman's Question, certain action has been taken on the initiative of some of the unions concerned, but I have no evidence that the action taken is as yet prejudicing the interests of patients.

Mr. Gaitskell: Since it is obviously desirable to try to settle this unfortunate dispute, may I ask the Minister whether he will consider the desirability of this claim being looked at once more by the Whitley Council and whether, if that can be arranged, he will ensure that in future the Government do control the management side so that effective negotiation can take place and that if it breaks down the matter can go to arbitration?

Mr. Walker-Smith: I think that the right hon. Gentleman and the House are aware of the complexities of the particular Whitley Council composition on the management side in this case. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Certainly. The right hon. Gentleman is now suggesting that we make effective representations which our minority of five were not able to

make effective before. I am in some difficulty in seeing how that can be done without a complete modification of the Whitley machinery.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is it not clear that unless and until the Minister does this the whole functioning of the Whitley Council becomes impossible?

Mr. Walker-Smith: No, Sir. I have already told the House that there are two stages in this matter, the Whitley negotiating stage and the express statutory duty placed by the regulations upon my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and myself.

Mr. Gaitskell: There is one further point. Is it not desirable that the Government, who are the effective employers in this matter, should be effective in negotiations?

Mr. Walker-Smith: We sought to be effective in the negotiation, but, as I have already explained to the House, the views of our Departmental representatives did not prevail; they alone represent the taxpayer who has to find the money for these people.

Mr. Robens: Is it not a fact that the Minister now complains of the complexity of the management side, but that he and those responsible for it are responsible for the composition of the management side into which they changed it? How far has the right hon. and learned Gentleman proceeded in dealing with Sir Noel Hall's report on the regrading scheme? Is not this another way—if the right hon. and learned Gentleman would advance his consideration of it—in which the matter might be brought before the appropriate authorities and settled?

Mr. Walker-Smith: I am not making a matter of complaint about the composition. I recognise that this is the position of the composition of the management side. All that I have asked the House to do is to face the consequences and implications of that position.
My reply to the second part of the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary question is that the report of Sir Noel Hall is at present before the Whitley Council. In due course, after the Council has considered it, it will, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, make its recommendations to my right hon. Friend and myself. I have already told a deputation


of the Whitley Council that it need not be assumed from the withholding of approval to the 3 per cent. wage increase that effect would necessarily not be given to the Noel Hall recommendation.

Mr. Robens: May we have that statement a little more clearly, in view of the fact that the Minister vetoed the previous recommendation? Is he now saying that he will not veto any recommendation on the grading scheme?

Mr. Walker-Smith: No, Sir. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman understands all this a good deal better than he would have the House believe. The decision about the 3 per cent. wage increase was taken expressly, specifically, and exclusively in the general economic context of the Government's policy in regard to inflationary pressures arising from increases linked to the cost of living. Sir Noel Hall is concerned not with the cost of living aspect, but with the possibilities of regrading, in other words, of revaluation in the career structure for this service. It raises quite different points, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman knows as well as or better than anybody.

Dr. Summerskill: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the successful treatment of patients in hospital depends in large measure upon the keeping of detailed records, which are kept by the clerical employees? The Minister has told us this afternoon that he has not observed any deterioration, but will not the failure to keep these records only be observed in a few days' time and will it not jeopardise treatment?

Mr. Walker-Smith: I am, of course, aware of the particular functions of the administrative and clerical employees which impinge most directly upon the patient. I can assure the right hon. Lady that I am keeping that aspect of the matter very carefully in mind.

Dame Irene Ward: Can my right hon. and learned Friend say when this particular Whitley Council machinery for dealing with the appropriate hospital service employees was established?

Mr. Walker-Smith: I think it was in 1950 or 1951, but without notice I would not like to tie myself to a date.

Mr. Mellish: Does the Minister understand that the action he has taken—I

believe it was the first time any Minister had taken such action in the whole of the Whitley machinery in fifty-two years—is deeply resented by the whole trade union movement? [HON. MEMBERS: "No.") Yes, because the Minister has broken down the good will which has always existed between the management side and the employees' side of Whitley. The point is that the management side was unanimous on this matter; it represents the employers in the service. What the Minister has done is to overthrow the decision which it made in the light of the facts as it saw them.
Secondly, I want to ask the Minister—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."] At least, it is a good speech—how he proposes to keep this House informed of developments in the hospital service? Undoubtedly, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Warrington (Dr. Summerskill) has said, there will be a deterioration in this service within the next few days.

Mr. Walker-Smith: I cannot accept the position as it is put by the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish), who, I know, feels sincerely and, indeed, vehemently about this matter. The Confederation of Health Service Employees has not yet decided whether to take part in this ban. The National Federation of Hospital Officers has definitely decided not to take part. The members of N.A.L.G.O. employed in Coventry hospitals decided yesterday not to join in the overtime ban.
As to keeping the House of Commons informed, I must, subject, of course, in this as in all things, to your guidance, Mr. Speaker, try to strike a balance between my natural desire to keep the House fully informed and my desire not to take up the time of the House when I have nothing new to say, a desire which is shared by every hon. Member in his own case.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Does the Minister realise that this House would feel very badly indeed if he tried to make use of the general sense of loyalty of nurses and other hospital staff, which may in sonic cases prevent them taking action which otherwise they would gladly take, and that they feel very badly about his action in this matter? Does he recognise


that there is a very serious staffing position, which Sir Noel Hall recognised, and that if his proposals are to be carried out it might well mean an increase in salary scales of 20 per cent. to 25 per cent.? Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman realise that he ought to accept the Whitley Council's proposals in this matter?

Mr. Walker-Smith: If I may respectfully say so, the hon. Member has not been quite so concise as usual in his supplementary question and, therefore, perhaps not as clear as usual. I have already dealt with the report of Sir Noel Hall in answer to the right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens).

Mr. Callaghan: There are more than 1 million public servants in this country who, for the last thirty years, have always regarded arbitration proceedings as the head and front of Whitley procedure when there has been a dispute which has not been resolved. As, in this case, merely a technicality is involved, there is no dispute—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Hon. Members opposite should listen—is the Minister applying his mind to the question of how a dispute can be formally registered so that it can go to arbitration and an independent verdict be reached? Otherwise, the Whitley machinery in the public service is in grave jeopardy.

Mr. Walker-Smith: This question was among those which, with the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, I discussed in a three-hour interview with the deputation from this Whitley Council a week or two ago. I read in the newspapers that they have now taken counsel's opinion on this matter, but, of course, I am not acquainted with that.

Mr. Callaghan: May I press the Minister on this matter? Surely he and the Government have a responsibility for preserving confidence in the Whitley machinery. Therefore, no matter what opinion the staff side may be taking, does he not think that he has a responsibility for consideration of how a dispute, which

undoubtedly exists in fact, whether technically it exists or not, can be resolved? Is it not in the interest of the Government as well as the interests of the staff that the Whitley machinery should function?

Mr. Walker-Smith: Nothing that I or my right hon. Friends have said has excluded the possibility of arbitration on this, matter if an arbitrable issue is brought up. That has been stated in this House and in another place and that is the position.
This, as I say, was among the questions I discussed with the deputation from the Whitley Council. I discussed it quite freely and frankly with them. I am always happy to see them again, but, in fact, as the hon. Member knows, they went straight from the three hours' discussion to initiate the matter of direct action.

Sir Ian Fraser: Is it not clear that unless some sense of abstinence and moderation is exercised—[HON. MEMBERS: "You started it."]—by all those who have a call upon the national wealth, and especially those who had £900 million worth of increases of wages last year, to allow others to have their turn this year, there will be no money for the old-age pensioners, the war pensioners, people who live on small fixed incomes, or those who are not very well paid in our public service?

Mr. Lee: Would the Minister address his mind to the fact that the only reason he was able to veto this issue was that the unions made a success of their application for an increase in wages? Had they put up a very bad case which failed to impress the management side, they could then have gone to arbitration despite anything he might have done. Will he try to resolve that ridiculous position so that the unions can negotiate, arbitrate or conciliate in some way or other?

Mr. Walker-Smith: As I have told the House, I discussed these matters with the Whitley Council deputation. If they are desirous of raising again the question of arbitration they will no doubt say so.

COLLIERY EXPLOSION, MUIRKIRK

Mr. Emrys Hughes (by Private Notice): Mr. Emrys Hughes (by Private Notice) asked the Paymaster-General whether he will make a statement on the explosion at Kames Colliery, Muirkirk.

The Paymaster-General (Mr. Reginald Maudling): The House will have learned of the tragic explosion which took place last night at Karnes Colliery, Muirkirk, Ayrshire, in which, I regret to say, 17 men lost their lives and others were injured. There were about 200 working in the pit at the time.
Her Majesty The Queen has expressed her deep concern at this accident and has graciously sent a message of sympathy to the bereaved and to those injured.
I am sure the House will wish to join with me and my colleagues in expressing deepest sympathy with the families of those who lost their lives, and with those who were injured.
Her Majesty's Inspectors of Mines are investigating the circumstances of the explosion and my noble Friend has directed the Chief Inspector to hold a public inquiry.

Mr. Robens: May I, on behalf of those on this side of the House, associate myself with the right hon. Gentleman's expression of regret at this occurrence and of sympathy with the relatives of those killed and injured and say, once again, how much we are reminded of the terrible price of coal?

PRIVATE MEMBERS' BILLS

MATRIMONIAL PROCEEDINGS (CHILDREN)

Bill to extend the powers of courts to make orders in respect of children in connection with proceedings between husband and wife and to require arrangements with respect to children to be made to the satisfaction of the court before the making of a decree in such proceedings, presented by Mr. Moyle; supported by Mr. Deedes, Mrs. Eirene White, Mr. Elwyn Jones, Dr. Summerskill, Sir Hugh Linstead, Mr. Ernest Davies, Mr. MacColl, Mr. Russell, Dr. Broughton, Miss Burton, and Mr. Doughty; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 7th February, and to be printed. [Bill 16.]

VARIATION OF TRUSTS

Bill to extend the jurisdiction of courts of law to vary trusts in the interests of beneficiaries and sanction dealings with trust property, presented by Mr. Petre Crowder; supported by Sir Lionel Heald, Major Hicks-Beach, Mr. Gower, Mr. John Hay, Mr. Elwyn Jones, Mr. Geoffrey Stevens, Mr. Black, Major Sir William Anstruther-Gray, Mr. Doughty, and Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 6th December, and to be printed. [Bill 17.]

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (OMNIBUS SHELTERS AND QUEUE BARRIERS) (SCOTLAND)

Bill to make provision as to the erection and maintenance of omnibus shelters and queue barriers by local authorities in Scotland; and for purposes connected therewith, presented by Sir James Henderson-Stewart; supported by Miss Herbison, Sir James Duncan, Mr. Malcolm MacMillan, Major Sir William Anstruther-Gray, Mr. Hannan, Mr. Patrick Maitland, Mr. Hubbard, Mr. Nairn, Mr. John MacLeod, and Mr. Grimond; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 24th January, and to be printed. [Bill 18.]

COMPENSATION (ACQUISITION AND PLANNING)

Bill to amend the law of compensation in cases of compulsory acquisition of land under Act of Parliament and in cases where the value of land is affected by the operation of the Town and Country Planning Acts, presented by Captain Corfield; supported by Mr. Thornton-Kemsley, Mr. Ronald Bell, Major Hicks-Beach, Mr. Rippon, Mr. Mathew, Sir Eric Errington, Mr. Bowen, Mr. John Morrison, and Mr. Norman Cole; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 21st February, and to be printed. [Bill 19.]

METROPOLITAN POLICE ACT, 1839 (AMENDMENT)

Bill to amend section fifty-four of the Metropolitan Police Act, 1839, for the purpose of increasing the maximum penalty for threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour in any thoroughfare or public place, presented by Mr. Geoffrey Stevens; supported by Brigadier


Terence Clarke, Major W. W. Hicks-Beach, Sir John Barlow, Mr. Philip Bell, Mr. Robert Jenkins, and Mr. Green; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 7th March, and to be printed. [Bill 20.]

CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS (REGISTERED CLUBS)

Bill to amend the law in England and Wales in respect of the supply of intoxicating liquor to children and young persons in registered clubs and to prohibit their entry into, and their employment in, such clubs during the permitted hours, presented by Mr. Simmons; supported by Mr. Black, Mr. Bowen, Mr. Norman Cole, Mr. Ede, Mr. Gibson, Mr. Glenvil Hall, Mr. Hastings, Mr. Isaacs, Sir Frank Medlicott, Mr. Goronwy Roberts, and Mr. Royle; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 21st March, and to be printed. [Bill 21.]

DOUBLE DEATH DUTIES

Bill to reduce death duties in cases where two or more persons perish as a result of a common calamity, presented by Mr. Teeling; supported by Mr. Mathew, Mr. Marlowe, Sir Patrick Spens, Mr. Eric Fletcher, Mr. Bowen, Mr. Roy Jenkins, Major W. W. Hicks-Beach, Mr. Geoffrey Stevens, Mr. Angus Maude, Mr. Montgomery Hyde, and Mr. Denzil Freeth; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 24th January, and to be printed. [Bill 22.]

MERCHANT SHIPPING (LIABILITY OF SHIPOWNERS AND OTHERS)

Bill to raise the statutory limits of liability of shipowners and others for damages; and for purposes connected therewith, presented by Mr. Forrest; supported by Sir David Campbell, Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Chichester-Clark, Mr. Knox Cunningham, Mr. Currie, Mr. Godman Irvine, Mrs. McLaughlin, Captain Orr, Mr. Sumner, and Mr. Phelim O'Neill read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 7th February, and to be printed. [Bill 23.]

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION (SUPPLEMENTATION)

Bill to provide for the payment of allowances out of the Industrial Injuries Fund to workmen to whom the Workmen's

Compensation Acts apply; and for purposes connected therewith, presented by Mr. Deer; supported by Mr. Ronald Williams, Miss Herbison, Mr. Prentice, Mr. Bernard Taylor, Mr. Henry White, Mr. David Griffiths, Mr. Finch, Mr. Mason, Mr. Blyton, and Mr. Padley; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 7th March, and to be printed. [Bill 24.]

PROTECTION OF DEER

Bill to prohibit the hunting with hounds of deer; to provide for the control of deer by approved methods; and for purposes connected therewith, presented by Sir Frederick Messer; supported by Mr. Anthony Greenwood, Mr. Howard Johnson, Sir Thomas Moore, Mr. Victor Yates, Mr. Harold Gurden, Mr. George Thomas, Mr. Reeves, Mr. Viant, Mr. Brockway, Mr. John Paton, and Mr. Mackie; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 21st February, and to be printed. [Bill 25.]

REGISTERED DESIGNS ACT, 1949 (AMENDMENT)

Bill to provide more effective protection for the proprietors of registered designs and for other purposes, presented by Mr. Green; supported by Sir John Barlow, Sir Lionel Heald, Sir Toby Low, Mr. Remnant, Mr. Mathew, Mr. Fort. Mr. Geoffrey Hurst, Mr. David Price. Mr. Nigel Fisher, Mr. Glover, and Mr. Arthur Lewis; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 21st March, and to be printed. [Bill 26.]

DIVORCE (INSANITY AND DESERTION)

Bill to amend the law as to the circumstances in which, for the purposes of proceedings for divorce in England or Scotland, a person is to be treated as having been continuously under care and treatment and as to the effect of insanity on desertion, presented by Mr. Deedes; supported by Mrs. Eirene White, Mr. John Rodgers, Mr. Kaberry, Mr. Peyton, Mr. Reader Harris, Mr. Blenkinsop, Mr. Michael Stewart, and Mr. Kenneth Robinson; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 6th December and to be printed. [Bill 27.]

MARRIAGE ACTS AMENDMENT

Bill to enable certain places of worship to be registered for marriages less than twelve months after first being used for worship, presented by Mr. Hastings; supported by Mr. Percy Morris, Mr. Arthur Henderson, Mr. Kenyon, Mr. Llywelyn Williams, Mr. Harold Wilson. Mr. George Thomas, Mr. Gibson. Mr. J. Idwal Jones, Mr. Norman Cole, Mr. Holt, and Mr. Ede; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 7th February and to be printed. [Bill 28.]

OFFICES REGULATION

Bill to provide for securing the safety, health, and welfare of persons employed in offices; and for purposes connected therewith, presented by Mr. Victor Yates; supported by Mr. Creech Jones. Mr. Robens. Mr. Frederick Willey, Mr. Mulley, Mr. Wedgwood Benn, Mr. Harold Davies. Mr. Fernyhough, Mr. Denis Howell, Mr. Mellish. Mr. Sparks. and Mr. Sydney Irving; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 24th January and to be printed. [Bill 29.]

OPTICIANS

Bill to provide for the registration of opticians and the enrolment of bodies corporate carrying on business as opticians, to regulate the practice of opticians and the conduct by such bodies corporate of their business as opticians; and for purposes connected therewith, presented by Mr. Russell; supported by Mr. Blenkinsop. Wing Commander Bullus, Mr. Cronin, Mr. William Griffiths, Miss Herbison, Mrs. Hill, Mr. Holt, Sir Hugh Linstead, Mr. Marquand, Mr. Moyle, and Mr. Turton; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 6th December and to be printed. [Bill 30.]

BETTING

Bill to extend the powers of the Racecourse Betting Control Board, to amend the law relating to totalisator and pool betting and betting at totalisator odds on horse races; and for related purposes, presented by Mr. George Wigg; supported by Mr. Ede, Mr. Astor, Mr. Shinwell. Captain Richard Stanley, Mr. Thomas Williams, Mr. Holland-Martin, Mr. Paget, Mr. Simon Wingfield Digby, Mr. Ernest Davies, Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth, and Mr. Eric Johnson; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 21st March and to be printed. [Bill 31.]

MATRIMONIAL CAUSES

Bill to provide that separation agreements prior to the first day of October, nineteen hundred and thirty-seven in certain circumstances between husband and wife shall no longer bar the deserted spouse petitioning for divorce on the grounds of desertion, presented by Mr Kaberry; supported by Mr. R. Dudley Williams, Mr. Braine, Major W. W. Hicks Beach, Mr. Reader Harris, Mr. Russell, Mr. Page, Mr. Ronald Bell, Sir Hamilton Kerr, Mr. Partridge, and Mr. Tiley; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 21st February and to be printed. [Bill 32.]

MATRIMONIAL CAUSES (PROPERTY AND MAINTENANCE)

Bill to enable the power of the court in matrimonial proceedings to order alimony, maintenance or the securing of a sum of money to be exercised at any time after a decree; to provide for the setting aside of dispositions of property made for the purpose of reducing the assets available for satisfying such an order to enable the court after the death of a party to a marriage which has been dissolved or annulled to make provision out of his estate in favour of the other party: and to extend the powers of the court under Section seventeen of the Married Women's Property Act, 1882, presented by Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth; supported by Sir Lancelot Joynson-Hicks, Mr. Elwyn Jones, Mrs. Hill, Mr. Moyle, Dame Irene Ward, Sir Eric Errington, and Mr. Petre Crowder; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 7th March and to be printed. [Bill 33.]

NATIONAL ASSISTANCE ACT, 1948 (AMENDMENT)

Bill to amend Section thirty-one of the National Assistance Act, 1948, and to empower local authorities to provide meals, recreation and other services for old people; and for purposes connected therewith, presented by Mr. H. Hynd; supported by Mr. Frank McLeavy, Miss Joan Vickers, Mr. Clement Davies, Dr. Barnett Stross, Mr. Russell, Mrs. Cullen. Mr. Richard Winterbottom, Mr. George Jeger, Mr. Shurmer, Mr. Thomas Brown, and Mr. Hayman; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 6th December and to be printed. [Bill 34.]

DRAINAGE RATES

Bill to amend the provisions of the Land Drainage Act, 1930, relating to the ascertainment of annual value for the purposes of drainage rates; and for purposes connected therewith, presented by Miss Mervyn Pike; supported by Mr. Kimball, Lieutenant-Commander Baldock, Mr. James Lindsay, Wing Commander Bullus, Mr. Osborne, Mr. Ede, Mr. Diamond, Mr. Royle, Mr. Arthur Lewis, Mr. Frederick Willey, and Mr. J. C. Jennings; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 21st March and to be printed. [Bill 35.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Proceedings on Government Business exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House.)—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]

Orders of the Day — NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL

Considered in Committee [Progress, 19th November].

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Third Schedule.—(PROVISIONS TO BE SUBSTITUTED IN FIRST SCHEDULE TO NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT, 1946.)

3.52 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Jay: I beg to move, in page 9, line 15, to leave out "½".

The Chairman: It might be for the convenience of the Committee if the eight Amendments to the Schedule were discussed together, and then, when the time comes, we might have one Division on the first four and another Division on one Amendment to be selected from the second four.

Mr. Jay: Thank you, Sir Charles. The Amendments are intended to raise the Exchequer supplement to the Insurance Fund back from one-seventh to one-fifth of the total contributions, and also to reduce the contributions from the employer and the employee to the appropriate corresponding figure.
If the Minister intends to argue that the "½"—which, I hasten to assure you, Sir Charles, means a halfpenny—figuring in these Amendments is not the correct fraction, I am bound to tell him that as, at present, there is, under our Constitution, no Opposition actuary to assist us and no electronic brain in the House of Commons Library, we have used a halfpenny as a token figure in order to argue that the contributions should be reduced to whatever the appropriate figure would be.
In our view, the Minister, in all this, is putting far too heavy a burden on the contributor and far too light a burden on the Exchequer. On Second Reading, the right hon. Gentleman tried to confuse the issue by saying that in 1951 the Labour Government relieved the Exchequer of a liability of £86 million to the National Insurance Fund. What the Minister did not then say was that the 1951 Measure in no way increased the contribution from the employee, that it nevertheless raised the pension, and that the change in Exchequer supplement—


this is the real point—was a purely temporary one due to the unnecessary piling up of the Insurance Fund at that time. It was piling up surpluses which the Government Actuary considered unnecessary and unjustified.
The three-year change in Exchequer contributions made at that time made no difference to the liability of the contributors or the benefit going to the pensioners. Therefore, it in no way shifted any extra burden on to the contributors to the Fund, and it is the burden resting upon them which is the heart of our controversy today.
That, indeed, is exactly what the Minister has now done. He has made a large real transfer of this burden from the Exchequer to the contributors. At a time when the Fund is no longer likely to pile up in the way in which it was doing in 1951, he has raised the contribution from the employee and the employer by far more than he has raised the Exchequer supplement.
It was made perfectly plain in 1951—the Minister entirely failed 4o tell the House this on Second Reading—that the change in Exchequer supplements then was temporary and was designed to last only until 1954, when, as we then thought, the Fund would cease to pile up surpluses. Indeed, the Actuary, in his quinquennial Report, published in 1954, said in paragraph 34, that the 1951 arrangement was an interim arrangement of the amount and method of Exchequer support to the scheme pending the quinquennial review, and that, therefore, the change in the Exchequer grants was a temporary measure.
So, if the Minister intends to deny that that was a temporary measure, he will be impugning the veracity of the Government Actuary, to whose defence he leapt with such gallantry the day before yesterday. As Financial Secretary at the time, I said on 9th May, 1951, that the arrangements were all provisional pending the 1954 review of the National Insurance Scheme. Therefore, when the Minister says that he is now adopting the 1951 formula and does not tell us that that formula was intended to last only until 1954, he is rather misleading the Committee, though I am sure he does it out of ignorance rather than of malice.
Nor, incidentally, did the 1951 change in the supplement in any way alter the

amount which the Chancellor had to raise in taxation, because, from the point of view of the nation's saving, the Budget surplus had to be increased by the same amount as the excess payment into the Fund was reduced. But now, when the contribution is being raised, a relief to that extent is being given to the direct taxpayer. Thus, the truth now is that the Minister is transferring the real burden on to the contributor and away from the direct taxpayer.
In that sense, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) that the Bill is a Swindle on the contributor. That is what my hon. Friends and I object to, and we object to it because—this is the crux of the matter—the employee's contribution, which is now going up by 2s. a week to 9s. 5d. a week, is a higher percentage of a man's income the lower his income is, while direct taxation is a higher percentage of income the higher one's in come is. If the Minister does not understand that point, he really does not understand his job, and if he does understand it he ought not to be introducing the Bill in this form.
4.0 p.m.
By refusing to raise the Exchequer contribution, as we propose, proportionately, instead of raising the employee's contribution, the Minister is really converting this so-called insurance contribution into a form of taxation. The 1s. 2¾d.—the Actuary calls it 14·8d.—which, as I understand, the employee contributor will now pay every week over and above the actuarial figure necessary, is really the measure of the taxation which the Minister is now imposing. What the Government are doing by this Bill, if we measure the taxation element by the excess over the actuarial figure, is to raise taxation by about £100 million a year.
As I understand, an insurance contribution is a payment which the individual makes to his own pension in old age, but a contribution now made to other people's pensions, whether right or wrong, is not an insurance contribution but, of course, a form of taxation. Indeed, the Minister admitted, in a moment of further enthusiasm at the Brighton Conservative Conference, that he is levying this contribution now not as a payment for the individual's own pension in old


age, but as part payment for other people's pensions now.
Speaking at Brighton, the Minister said that the increased contribution would "fall"—that was the word he used—on the working population. And he added:
When those at work are enjoying the highest standard of living they ever had, it is right they should be asked to make some sacrifice for their elder fellow citizens.
Whether right or wrong, that is not an insurance contribution at all. It is simply a tax, and it is an extremely unfair tax because it falls the more heavily on the individual precisely as his income is lower. I wonder whether the Committee realises, or whether even the Minister himself realises, that after this Bill is passed the total yield of this insurance contribution from employee and employer together will actually exceed the total yield of Schedule E of Income Tax; that is to say, the total Income Tax yield on all wages and salaries?
If I am wrong in that figure then I hope that an answer will be given either by the Minister or by whoever is to reply from among the skiffle group of Ministers that I now see before me.

The Minister of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter): That is a reference to the harmony among us.

Mr. Jay: That is a reference to some of the rather odd figures that we were given, among other things, on Second Reading.
This contribution, of course, has a most regressive effect on the individual, and that effect would be reduced if the Minister would now accept these Amendments, increase the Exchequer supplement and scale down the contribution. Of course, the Minister may argue, and it is quite natural that he should, that even if there is a profit for the Exchequer on this operation in the year 1958–59—and, of course, there is a profit, and it really is no good his attempting to deny it, if one takes into account the changes in National Assistance, the tobacco token and war pensions—nevertheless, in spite of that, there will be a huge burden on the Exchequer in future. He actually gave a figure of £357 million a year in 1964–65.
That may be true on the basis of the calculations made by the Government Actuary now, but I think that this Committee should realise, at this date and in this year, what I frankly admit I did not understand in 1946 or 1951, that the Government Actuary—whose Reports, I may say, are extremely valuable in the whole of this discussion—has been consistently too pessimistic throughout the whole of the story.
In 1951, he predicted the appearance of a deficit on the Insurance Fund in a few years. In 1954, it had not yet appeared, and he predicted that the deficit would appear in 1956–57. We now find in 1957 that he does not expect it to appear until 1958–59 This deficit in the Fund is rather like the peak of a mountain that one is trying to climb—it is always moving one stage further on. Indeed, the Phillips Committee admitted quite frankly that the Actuary's estimates on all sorts of points had tended to be consistently too pessimistic, and the Actuary himself, in paragraphs 28, 49 and 73 of his own quinquennial Report, admits the same conclusion.
The Government Actuary always predicts that this emerging deficit will occur rather sooner than it does in fact. I remember once hearing the Prime Minister quoting someone as defining an actuary as a man who is dead on time, but in the matter of this emerging deficit the Government Actuary appears to me to be always a bit ahead of time, because this deficit with which we are threatened tomorrow is always moving a little into the distance.
That means that the Actuary is, perfectly properly, being professionally and actuarially cautious. I am sure that he is acting entirely consistently with the dictates of his professional conscience, but from our point of view it makes us—it makes me, at any rate—a little sceptical about this emerging deficit. For one thing, unless unemployment rises to 4 per cent., and unless interest rates fall to 3 per cent.—which I can hardly see happening if the Government go tottering and doddering on any longer—this deficit will not emerge until some years later than the Actuary prophesies. If it does not emerge, the Exchequer liability will not be what the Minister says, and there will not be any Exchequer grant to add to the Exchequer supplement in


order to cover a deficit that has not emerged at all.
That being so, we feel that what it really all conies to is this. If this 9s. 5d. a week contribution that the Government want to levy is an insurance contribution it is actuarially unjustified, and if it is a tax it is certainly not fair. What the Government are doing is to try to place the real burden of a large block of the social services on the contributor and no longer on the direct taxpayer at all. If we look at the figures of Income Tax yield and of contribution yield, it will be seen that the Government are steadily substituting the so-called insurance contribution for the Income Tax on personal earned incomes. We say that that is monstrously unfair and reactionary, and that the best way for the Government to correct it would be to accept this group of Amendments.

Mr. John McKay: Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) I want, if possible, to get some information. When the Labour Party drew up its new programme for pensions I am sure that the pamphlet mentioned that about 3s. 6d. of that contribution went towards retirement pensions, and that that 3s. 6d. was due to tax relief. I have gone through the revenue returns relative to payments made to find out—if it is correct that there is relief on payments made to the pension part of the insurance scheme—how much that relief amounts to in total. One cannot get it accurately without a tremendous amount of help and the spending of a tremendous amount of time.
If that principle is correct, and if there is tax relief on the amount of money paid towards retirement pensions, I estimate that about £30 million goes in the form of relief to the workers on their contributions. The cost to the workers in the scheme varies according to the amount of taxation which is paid.
Without going into details, if we stop that relief on taxation and spread the amount of money that will actually be paid next year—about £350 million in 1958 is to be paid by the workers in general—the Exchequer will get the benefit of about £30 million which is about one-twelfth of the actual contributions paid. If we were to use that money, instead of taking ½d. off we could take

9d. a week off the contributions paid by the individual worker.
The Government tell us that the cost to the National Insurance Scheme is borne equally by the workers, but that is not true. The higher the wage a man gets, the more relief he gets. I estimate that next year workers receiving £800 and £900 a year will be in the 8s. 6d. Income Tax band. They will each be paying about 4s. a week towards the pension. I do not know what the exact amount will be, but 3s. 6d. has been mentioned in the pamphlet, and, therefore, I should think it is bound to be about 4s. If we take into account the 8s. 6d., it will mean a relief to them of about 1s. 8d. a week.
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary is smiling, but if the main principles that I have outlined are anywhere near the actual position, then what I have said in general is nearly correct. If what I say is anywhere near correct, if about £30 million is going in tax relief on the amount of money paid, and we use that money in the way that I have suggested so that everybody pays the same amount, about 9d. a week less will be necessary in contributions paid by the workers. I should like the Minister to tell me whether there is this relief, and what is likely to be the amount of the new contributions next year. I should think it is bound to be 4s.
4.15 p.m.
The next point on which I want information is this. About £350 million is to be paid next year in contributions by the employers. I put it to the Minister that over the country as a whole it is correct that Profits Tax, tax on dividends and on undistributed profits amounts to approximately 50 per cent. of the total revenue. I think I have heard hon. Members opposite saying that Profits Tax was more than 50 per cent. Yet the poor under-dog, the man earning £7, £8, £9 or even £10 a week, with a family, gets no relief whatever. He pays the full contribution.
One would naturally expect that in a national scheme of this kind the great section of employers would be required to pay the actual cost involved, but, in fact, other things being equal, prices and profits remaining the same, the employer obtains relief in taxation to the extent of half his contributions. Therefore, the amount of money obtained by the Exchequer from


the employers' contributions will be not £350 million but only half that amount. Leaving aside party politics, I should like to know from the Minister whether what I have been saying is anything like correct.

Mr. A. E. Cooper: I find it a little difficult to follow the arguments of the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay). When he was Financial Secretary to the Treasury he was a great upholder of the principle of subsidies. He may not have realised it, but the granting of subsidies is a promiscuous handing out on a fiat-rate basis of national funds to people irrespective of their income. The man earning £1,000 a year and more is not in need of a subsidy of any sort, but it was the policy of the Labour Party to give him a subsidy. We have done away with that, and by bringing into the general pool a greater sum of money it has been possible to provide greater benefits to people on lower income scales.

Mr. Jay: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that a subsidy on food gives much more assistance to the man on the lower income because he spends a larger proportion of his income on food? Therefore, a case for a subsidy on those grounds is precisely the same as the case against a tax of this kind which falls more heavily on the man on a lower income.

Mr. Cooper: I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman can sustain that argument for a moment. If the Treasury is giving money to people who do not need it, then, obviously, they have less money available to give to people who do need it. It is really as simple as that. The reason the Income Tax gross figures have fallen, as the right hon. Gentleman has pointed out, is quite simply because of the tax reliefs which the Conservative Government have been able to give to the country, and that has relieved from tax liability a very large section of the community.

Mr. Jay: In the first place, I did not say that the tax figures had fallen, and, in the second place, it is not true. The total yield of Schedule E Income Tax has gone up. I said that as a result of this increase in contributions, next year's total yield of contributions would be greater than the total yield of Schedule E Income Tax.

Mr. Cooper: Perhaps I expressed myself badly. The fact is that because of the increase in the national product the amount received by the Treasury from Income Tax must of necessity be higher, but if it had been at the same level of taxation that was operating when we took over, the level would be considerably higher than it is today. We have, in six Budgets, made substantial concessions to Income Tax payers which 'have relieved from Income Tax liability a large section of the community.
The right hon. Gentleman must, therefore, face the fact that the lowest-paid workers now, through direct taxation, make no contribution whatsoever towards their pensions and only make a contribution through their weekly stamp. But the higher-paid worker not only makes a very substantial contribution to all of these things through direct taxation—and the higher his income the greater the contribution—but he also contributes through his weekly stamp.
Therefore, it seems to me that under our taxation system and the way in which we are operating today the lowest-paid worker gets a fair deal out of this. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] We must also consider that in a large section of the lowest income classes wives go out to work as well, and this is true not only on the lower scale of income but on the medium rates as well. In the great majority of cases the wives opt out of paying their full contribution, but when their husbands retire, or they reach retirement age, they get the full benefit of these pensions without making any contribution to them. It is a very substantial amount.
I now come to the question of indirect taxation to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. If his argument as he advanced it today, and other hon. Gentlemen have advanced it in the past, was a valid one, why did not the Labour Party, when it was in power, do something about indirect taxation, because indirect taxation is always levied on a flat-rate basis? One pays so much on a gallon of petrol, so much on a packet of cigarettes and so much on tobacco, and the man who gets hardest hit by that form of taxation is the lowest-paid worker.
The right hon. Gentleman never advanced this argument when he was Financial Secretary to the Treasury. As is so typical of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, when they are in


office they adopt one argument but when they are ii opposition they use an entirely contrary argument because they think it is a good thing with which to beat the Government.

Mr. A. E. Hunter: I am very pleased to support the Amendment so ably moved by my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay). Before I deal with some of the points that I wish to put in support of the Amendment, I should like to refer to what was said by the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Cooper), who has had a good deal of experience of industry and must, therefore, know that these contributions fall very heavily on the lower paid workers.
The argument that the lower-paid worker does not pay taxation falls to the ground. The lower-paid worker pays Purchase Tax. He pays it on cigarettes, he pays it when he has a glass of beer, and he pays it on many other things.

Mr. Cooper: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not want to misrepresent me. I specifically referred to direct taxation.

Mr. Hunter: The impression that I got from the hon. Member for Ilford, South was that the lower-paid worker was escaping taxation. I want to draw the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to the rates of contributions.
The contribution under this Bill goes up for a man over 18 to 9s. 5d. and for a woman to 7s. 8d. We have moved a long way from my boyhood days of the Liberal Governments, when the cry was "9d. for 4d." I think that the contribution in 1911 or 1912 was 4d. a week. That was paid only by a certain number of industrial workers. So we have travelled from 4d. to 9s. 5d. a week. That is a considerable amount to many employees in many industries.
Let us consider the agricultural worker. His minimum wage is under £8 a week and he will pay 9s. 5d. Take the case of many employees engaged in distribution. They are often in the lower group of weekly wage earners. The same is the case among some clerical workers. In fact, throughout some sections of industry today, one would find some employees riot earning £8 a week.
When we come to women's rates, the wage in some cases is only £4 15s., or

probably £5 per week, and the 7s. 8d. contribution which they have to pay is a very heavy burden on them. The purpose of my right hon. Friend's Amendment is to increase the Treasury grant so that the Minister can make proposals to decrease this very heavy contribution. If we get a higher Treasury grant, which will probably not appeal to the hon. Member for Ilford, South, then it will come out of taxation. The lower paid worker and the higher income group all play their part in payment of taxation.
It has been pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman), on many occasions, that while we keep to a flat contribution it is bound to hit the lower paid worker very much indeed. The man earning £7, £8 and £9 a week will have to pay the same contribution as the man earning £20, £25, £30 or £40 a week, and the same argument applies to women. Surely, if we could get away from the flat rate contribution, we could reduce the contributions of workers in lower paid jobs.
I appeal to the Minister to consider our Amendment again. For many employees in the lower paid sections of industry, an extra 2s. a week will be felt as a heavy increase. If he can meet us at this stage, he will, I am certain, have the support of many hon. Members on both sides of the Committee, for all hon. Members must realise the burden of the new contributions on the lower-paid employees.

4.30 p.m.

Mr. Tom Brown: I wish to say a few words about the Exchequer grant, because many of us are disturbed at the way the practice is changing. Before I come to that subject, however, I would appeal to the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Cooper). He always attempts to strike a discordant note, somehow, in our debates. He is smiling now, but every time he rises in his place to address the Committee, he tries to tell us what the Labour Party should have done when it was in power.

Mr. Cooper: Quite right, too.

Mr. Brown: I am asking him to tell the Government what they should do while they are in power. I hope that, as the debate proceeds, we shall not indulge in what I call a political slanging match.
There are three sections of the community responsible for creating the Insurance Fund, from which benefits are paid. There are three sections responsible for maintaining the Fund after its creation. They are the Exchequer, the workers and the employers. They are charged with the responsibility, under the National Insurance Act, 1946, of maintaining the Fund so that the benefits under that Act, and under this Bill, will be made possible.
During my speech in the debate on Second Reading, I made a passing reference to this matter, and I wish to amplify the argument this afternoon. I said then:
The insured workers will have to pay. There is no question about it. We cannot think of a pension scheme unless the workers are prepared to pay towards it, but I say that the payment ought to be on an equitable basis—equitable in every sense of the word. Therefore, I say that the Exchequer is not paying its equal share of the scheme. It is true that the Minister made some reference to increased contributions from the Exchequer"—
the right hon. Gentleman did at that time say that the Government were increasing the Exchequer grant for the year 1957–58—
but I think that if he will turn back the files he will discover that in 1952, 1953 and 1954 the Exchequer grant to this Fund went down sharply."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th November, 1957; Vol. 403, c. 1040.]
I am not blaming the right hon. Gentleman for it going down. The Treasury has a great deal of power. I have often said that, when we engage on any effort to bring about reforms, whatever they may be—industrial, social or economic—the Treasury plays a very important part. I know that many right hon. and hon. Gentlemen do not agree with me, but I believe that in every step we take towards improving our national situation the Treasury is the nigger in the woodpile.
I will quote the figures for the years in question, which I mentioned on 13th November. For 1950–51, the Treasury grant was £139¾ million; in 1951–52, it had fallen to £104½ million; in 1952–53, it had fallen again to £65,326,000; in 1953–54, it was £70 million; in 1954–55, it was £71 million; in 1955–56, it was, according to the latest figure available to me, £92 million. The figures indicate that there has been a tendency for the Exchequer to escape its full responsibility.
When the 1946 Act was first put on the Statute Book, the Treasury paid one-fifth. Now the proportion has been reduced

to one-seventh. The Treasury should pay its fair and equitable share. I know that the question then arises as to what in our opinion, and that of the Government, constitutes a fair share. I say that that share must bear some relation to the amount of contribution called for from the insured worker.
Be it remembered that I am not advancing the argument that we should try to put all the responsibility for the scheme on the Exchequer. I wish we could. That would be in keeping with my philosophy. However, with the system as we now have it, that is impossible. We must, therefore, concentrate, with a fair mind and generous heart, on what is the best way to ensure equity between the three sections of the community to which I have referred.
My hon. Friend the Member for Feltham (Mr. Hunter) referred to the effect the increased contributions would have on lower-paid workers. I know that the higher-paid worker today may be able to bear without any undue strain upon his resources the payment of the increase, but the lower-paid worker is not, in comparison, in a position to pay the increased contribution.
Yesterday, though I may have been just a little off the mark at the time, I ventured to put to the Minister the effect which the increased contributions would have upon a representative lower-paid worker. I examined over the weekend some of the pay tickets showing the wages earned by such workers, and I took as examples the wages of young men between the ages of 18 and 21, who are the lowest-paid workers in the mining industry, that being the industry with which I have had the closest association.
I have here a copy of one young man's pay ticket; his pay number is 450. His gross wages for last week were £6 15s. 10d. He is entitled to a bonus, and for last week the sum was £1 7s. 2d. Thus, his gross wages for that week were £8 3s. But what about deductions? That is the salient question for the industrial worker, "How much are they stopping from my wages to meet the cost of the scheme?" Here they are: miners' pension scheme, 1s. 6d.; permanent relief society, 9d.; welfare club, 2d.; baths, 4d.; trade union contributions, 1s. 7d.; supplementary insurance, 4d.; the new rate of contribution will be 9s. 5d. Also,


he pays Income Tax to the extent of 12s. Therefore, the total deductions from that young man's wages last week were £1 6s. 1d. His net wages to take home, to his mother, widowed mother, whoever it may be, were, therefore, reduced to £6 16s. 11d.
Will anyone suggest, in these days of so-called high standard of living, that £6 16s. 11d. is a magnificent wage for a young man of 20 working in the pits? I do not think it is. I am using these figures to prove how this Bill will affect the man in the street. It is the man in the street whom we have to satisfy. I do not think that the people are 100 per cent. satisfied.
I remember an old professor telling me, when I went to technical school, when I was confronted with a problem, "Difficulties are a means of progress if they are tackled in the proper way. Always remember, as you journey through life, that there is no such thing as satisfaction. The human heart and the human mind are always craving after something more." We can bring a degree of contentment to these people, and I think that the Minister will be well advised, if he does not do it this year, to consider the question on a subsequent occasion. He may not be able to interfere. The procedure may not help him, but I think that it is worth his consideration.
If this scheme is to be a success—and I hope it will be, in spite of all its faults and failings—we must carry the industrial workers with us, because there is nothing more disturbing to an industrial worker, whether he works in the pit, in the mill, on the land, or in the factory, to think that somebody is "putting one across" him. I am using my own Lancashire parley, but if he gets the idea that the Government are "putting one across" him then he has not much love for them.
We are anxious that the Exchequer should bear its fair share, but not more than its fair share. We are aware of its difficulties. This Amendment is an attempt to get the Exchequer to bear its fair share of the scheme. Let us have fair play for the Exchequer, for the employer and for the worker. If we can work together, bearing in mind those three sections, and see that we get as near to equity as possible, then I think that we shall be well on the way to creating some degree of contentment in the minds of the workers.

Mr. R. E. Prentice: should like to make a brief reference to the remarks of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Cooper). I think that his contribution was typical of the rare contributions that have been made during this stage of the Bill from his side of the Committee, in that all the Members who have spoken from that side have failed to defend the Measure before us but have tried to suggest that in some way or other the Government are doing better than the Labour Government did in their day. I do not believe that the pensioners, who are disappointed at the length of time it has taken the Government to produce anything, and are disappointed at what they have produced, will be impressed by political red herrings of that sort.
If I may throw a brickbat in return, am proud of the fact, as a member of the Labour Party, that in 1946–48 the Labour Government did more for the pensioners than any Government in our history and gave a lead to the world in introducing a comprehensive social insurance scheme for the first time. When the Conservative Party produces, something comparable with that it will then have the opportunity to make party points out of pensions. It has not yet produced anything comparable.
The hon. Member for Ilford, South also went to some pains to point out that the higher-paid worker was contributing more for his pension than the lower-paid worker. Of course he is. That has always been the intention. It was never the intention that the scheme should be a purely actuarial scheme, run on the basis of a commercial insurance scheme. It was intended to be a part of our Welfare State, in which people would to some extent pay according to their means. The point that the Committee has to decide is whether or not these proposals go far enough in that direction and whether they ensure that the people who are better off will to some extent help those who are not so well off in providing their pension.
4.45 p.m.
My hon. Friends the Members for Ince (Mr. T. Brown) and Feltham (Mr. Hunter) have given many details from their experience of the way in which these new rates will be a burden on the lower-paid worker. I do not want to


go over that ground again, but what worries me is the fact that it leaves this or any future Government very little room for manoeuvre. Having put up the contribution of an adult male worker to 9s. 5d., how much higher can we go in future? There will come a time when we shall want to go higher.
Even to maintain the very poor value of the pensions proposed in the Bill, there will have to be some allowance made for future rises in the cost of living. Looking only a little way ahead, the new pension rates will come into effect next January and the full effects of the Rent Act will be felt next April. Many pensioners will have to pay very large increases in rent as a result. There will be a demand for a further rise in pensions which I suggest will come very soon.
We on this side of the Committee are not satisfied with keeping the pension at the present level. We want to achieve something better. It is time that the community faced the moral responsibility of making bigger and better provisions for old age, sickness, unemployment, and other needs of this kind. Flat rates at the present level leave no room for manoeuvre.
The point was made on both sides of the Committee during Second Reading that this was probably the last Bill which could be produced on the old basis. If we want to produce a Bill on the old basis in future—and the Labour Party want to put it on a new basis—then there will be little or no room for manoeuvre on the flat-rate contributions as they stand. The best solution is to produce a scheme such as the Labour Party produced for graduated contributions. A second solution, and one which is better than the solution proposed in this Bill, is that we should make sure that the Exchequer pays a larger share, and, in fact, pays the share it was intended to pay when the 1946 Act was introduced.
I think that it is time that we returned to that basis and I therefore commend the Amendment to the Committee.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Although I sometimes sympathise with Oscar Wilde's view that one can resist anything except temptation, I shall not succumb to the temptation of the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) to deal with,

as I am sorely tempted to do, his very gallant and chivalrous attempt to support the record of his right hon. Friends when they were in office.
The right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) bears much more responsibility for that shabby record than the hon. Gentleman, and, therefore, I will not succumb to the temptation so adroitly and agreeably dangled before me in the speech of the hon. Member for East Ham, North.

Mr. Prentice: Has not the Minister misquoted Oscar Wilde? Did he not say that the best way to get rid of temptation is to give way to it?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am certain that, although the hon. Gentleman is now guilty of a misquotation, it is a misquotation which, in intellectual matters, has governed his way of life for many years.
That leads me to what I was about to say. As the right hon. Gentleman and I worked against each other on Finance Bills for three very long years, as they seemed, it seems very like old times to hear him agreeably and plausibly putting forward wholly unsound financial propositions and then treating without any discomforture whatever the demolition which inevitably follows them. It really is like old times.
Before I proceed to deal with the right hon. Gentleman, I should, however, like to reply, first, to the rather separate issue raised by his hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend (Mr. McKay) in connection with the application of the Income Tax Acts to these benefits. As I understood him, the hon. Member appeared correctly to state the present position: that is, that so far as the long-term benefits—retirement pension and widow's pension in particular—are concerned, allowance is made for Income Tax in respect of the contributions but the benefits themselves when they come to be paid are taxable in the hands of the recipients. The position concerning the short-term benefits—sickness and unemployment—is the opposite. That, I understand, has been the position for a number of years.
I take the point made by the hon. Member; it has been, as he knows, taken before. He will, of course, appreciate that although to reverse the position would no doubt result in some additional


revenue to the Exchequer, account would have to be taken of the fact that if the contributions themselves were not to be allowed for tax, it would be morally necessary to make the pensions free from tax in the hands of the recipients. There would, therefore, be an offsetting factor, a more offsetting factor, perhaps, in the future than in the past, because with the entry of the late-age entrants into benefit next year there will be rather more recipients of these pensions in the higher Income Tax brackets than there have been in the past. I have, however, noted the hon. Member's point.
I would only add the comment that if his point was, as I think it was, that this arrangement works somewhat unfairly in the case of the man who pays Income Tax as opposed to the man whose remuneration puts him below the Income Tax level, it is, of course, the fact that the man who pays Income Tax is also in that way making some contribution to that element in the finances of the fund which we are at present discussing: that is, the amount found by the taxpayer himself. For that reason, it is, perhaps, not quite as inequitable as the hon. Member was disposed to think.
At an earlier stage—and I must hand to right hon. Gentlemen opposite at least the pedestrian virtue of consistency in this matter—when I made my announcement, the first reaction of the party opposite was to complain that these proposals did not put sufficient expenditure upon the taxpayer. I would certainly stress the word "taxpayer". The right hon. Gentleman himself, no doubt from sheer force of habit, referred to the Exchequer, but there is apt to be a certain confusion of thought, magnificently exemplified last night by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), who, I regret to say, is not in his place, when he referred in another context to the fact that the Treasury could do without its £16½ million and could itself bear the cost of certain matters, apparently under the illusion that the Treasury has a heap of gold independent from the taxpayer which could conveniently be used to finance social changes. I acquit art least the right hon. Member for Battersea, North of more than a slip of phraseology; I am perfectly certain that there was no misunderstanding on his part. I thought it necessary to make that point

in view of the fact that misunderstanding apparently exists in other directions.
The series of Amendments themselves are rather odd. They propose, first, very substantial increases in the Exchequer supplement, and secondly, very small reductions in the contributions, and by male workers only. I understood the right hon. Gentleman to refer to the latter as being intended to be on a token basis. I am bound to comment that if the right hon. Gentleman intends to take the matter to a Division, it is a somewhat unbalanced Amendment to press which proposes the full intended additional load on the Exchequer while proposing, at the same time, a very modest modification of the other contributors' contributions.
Although the expedient of a token—even though it is only one-half of the equation which is in token form; the other half is in very solid form indeed—is perfectly understandable in the circumstances, the right hon. Gentleman would put himself in a very odd position if he went to the point of seeking to put these particular very curious figures into the Bill, because the right hon. Gentleman is, no doubt, quite clear what the effect of doing it would be.
The effect would be, from the third year, only to deprive the contribution revenue of the Fund of £3 million a year. From the third year, it would leave the Exchequer where it will anyhow be, as the increase in Exchequer supplementation would serve to reduce the Exchequer deficiency payment; and in the interim two years the effect would be to accumulate smallish additional surpluses in the Fund at the cost of the taxpayer. It would, therefore, as a practical contribution to the finances of the Fund, be a somewhat futile thing to do. I hope that the right lion. Gentleman will bear these considerations in mind when we come to the conclusion of our discussion.

Mr. Jay: The Minister will, I am sure, realise that we, like him, are anxious to get the Bill through fairly rapidly, because it does make some increase in pensions. Therefore, we did not want to take a great deal of extra time in getting these fractions exactly right.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I appreciate that and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman, having admitted that he does not


regard them as exactly right, will not seek to write them into the Bill.
The major point is the broad criticism of the level of the Exchequer supplementation as compared with the load upon the contributors. The two propositions that have been put forward by the Opposition are, first, that more ought to be on the Exchequer, and secondly, that in any event the Exchequer is making a profit. I shall seek to deal with both those propositions, which I shall begin by saying seem to me to amount to an error of reasoning based upon a false hypothesis of fact.
The point, as I understand it, is the point which was raised with a great display of energy by the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) on Second Reading, when he took the view that this particular arrangement of contributions was, in his own elegant phraseology, a swindle. Indeed, he suggested to me that I had no right to object to that because I had myself in the past used, and would, no doubt, in the future use, fairly firm language concerning a scheme in connection with which he has at least some measure of responsibility.
I should like to make it clear that I have no objection to the strength of the hon. Member's language but only to its inaccuracy. It is, of course, the fact that in the arrangements for the Exchequer supplement we are following very closely the line taken by the right hon. Member for Battersea, North and his colleagues when they were in office, although, alas, so far as the deficit payments are concerned, we shall certainly have to assume for the Exchequer a much heavier obligation than they did.
The right hon Member for Battersea, North tried to anticipate my reference to what he and his colleagues did in 1951, which, he said, was right, because the Fund was then in surplus. The right hon. Gentleman, I take it, admits the rather curious passage of events. The right hon. Lady the Member for Warrington (Dr. Summerskill), then Minister of National Insurance, introduced a Bill which at its introduction would have reduced the Exchequer supplement to the contributions to a figure of 6d.—on the then contribution of 8s. 9d., something like 5½ per cent. It was only the objections raised by my noble Friend who is

now Lord Ingleby and the then right hon. and learned Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. W. S. Morrison) which induced the right hon. Lady and her colleagues to bring forward modified proposals providing the one-seventh formula and reducing, at any rate, the proposed gains to the Exchequer. Even as it was, however, the Measure of 1951 reduced the Exchequer contribution to the Fund by way of both supplement and deficiency payments by no less than £86 million.
It is not good enough for the right hon. Gentleman to say that the Fund was then in surplus. The Fund was then being built up. The right hon. Gentleman knows that its building-up was checked by that Act. That has the effect that the situation is in some measure today less easy than it would have been had the Fund been allowed to accumulate further with the interest payments, which we can draw on annually in aid of the payment of benefits, proportionately increased. Therefore, we must start on the basis that right hon. Gentlemen opposite have, on their own record, absolutely no basis for taking any high and mighty doctrinal stand on the doctrine of a precise Exchequer contribution, whether based on the 1946 formula or any other.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. Jay: The right hon. Gentleman would agree, would he not, as to the difference between the arrangements originally suggested in the Bill of my right hon. Friend the Member for Warrington (Dr. Summerskill) and the legislation as it finally went through, that there was no material difference in the total Exchequer liability but merely a book-keeping amendment between the proportion of it which came under Exchequer supplement and the proportion which came under Exchequer grant? It was merely a bookkeeping arrangement made to satisfy both sides of the Committee, and really there was nothing between us at all.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The right hon. Gentleman has not quite got it right. If the right hon. Lady's proposal had gone forward as it originally stood the actual amount paid to the Fund would have been reduced. It is perfectly true that in response to the pressure she raised it; that the surplus, though less than it would have been under the 1946 contributions, still continued in some


measure; and that in the normal way the Exchequer borrowed it back for use from the Fund; but the right hon. Gentleman must face the fact that the growth of the Fund was checked by that Statute. I am not pronouncing whether it was right or wrong to do so. What I am doing is—

Mr. John Paton: Mr. John Paton (Norwich, North) rose—

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I hope the hon. Member will forgive me if I do not give way. This is a somewhat complex financial argument, and though I am willing to give way, if I do give way I shall break the thread of my argument.
Right hon. Gentlemen opposite are not really in a position to take any doctrinal view of the 1946 formula as though there were any element of a sacred cow about it. They sought to mutilate that cow even more seriously than they were allowed to. We must approach this on the basis of what is a common sense arrangement and not on the basis of the 1946 arrangements, which merely took into account the arrangements of the pre-existing Funds as the basis.

Mr. Paton: I know the difficulty of arguing these rather complex matters and I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way to me now. I am speaking from memory because I have not refreshed my mind on this matter, but is it not true to say, and ought it not in fairness to be said, that any action which was taken by the Labour Government of that time arose from certain considerations advanced by the Actuary himself in his Report, when he drew attention to what he considered to be certain undesirable aspects of the finances of the Fund? It was in that situation, attention to which had been directed by the Actuary, that the Labour Government then acted.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I shall be referring to one very important change, which has a considerable bearing on this matter, which originated from that Report, but the hon. Gentleman really cannot ride off on the shoulders of the Actuary—

Mr. Paton: I do not want to. I admitted the responsibility of the Government.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: As I understand it there is no quarrel between us here. I am not arguing the merits one way or the

other of the decision, but I am referring to it as vitiating the claim of right hon. Gentlemen opposite always to have maintained and always to have desired to maintain Exchequer supplements on the 1946 or some other, older basis.
Let us deal with this as a practical matter. I think the first practical point is that, as a result of the Exchequer supplement and contributions being provided now, the contributors to the Fund are going to receive an absolutely first-class bargain. I gave the figure on Second Reading of the advantage gained by a married man who retires at the age of sixty-five as long ahead as 1978. For nearer dates the figures are even more striking, but I wanted to take a figure in the middle-distance of time. That man receives a pension whose capital value is £2,650. If he has contributed the absolute maximum under this scheme and under the older schemes and not received, as many people do, credits from time to time he could not towards that capital sum have contributed more than £970. I work it out that for that £970 he could on those same terms obtain in pension under this Bill a pension of 80s., but he would get only 29s. 6d. if he received his pension simply on the basis of his contributions.
I could multiply these examples, but that man will get for what would earn him a pension of 29s. 6d. a pension of 80s. That is the clearest indication possible of the support being given both by the employer and by the Exchequer to the pension arrangements under this scheme. In replying to those hon. Members who have been good enough to refer to this matter as a swindle I can only express the hope that somebody will try to swindle me along the same lines.
The hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Grossman)—I am sorry he is not here—said that young people would have to pay more under the scheme than would be necessary to get their pension. That, of course, is not true. If account is taken both of Exchequer contributions and of employers' contributions, it is in fact the case that a person now entering insurance gets an extremely good bargain on the proposed terms. As the hon. Member for Coventry, East is not here I shall not carry the matter any farther, but if the hon. Member's objection is to what is called an overload on the contri-


bution—one or two hon. Members have also referred Ito that overload in abusive terms, as if there were some sinister object by the present Government—let me remind them of what the Report of the Phillips Committee said. In paragraph 305 it said this:
In the event, however, of an increase in the pension rates, the consequent addition to the contribution should not be confined, as it has been in the past, to the increase appropriate to an age 16 entrant. There should, in our view, also be added such further sum as will be sufficient, on average for the whole body of contributors at the time, to meet the part of the cost of the increase in the pension rate not covered by the increase in the age 16 contribution. One-seventh of the total increase in contribution thus assessed should fall on the Exchequer. Similar principles should be applied on the occasion of any further increase.
If we were now to follow the very distinguished Phillips Committee it would be a little bold of any hon. Member to describe the proposition recommended by that Committee as a swindle, but in truth and in fact we have not gone as far as that, and the overload included in these contributions on top of the previous one does not amount to as much as would be justified on the principle of the Phillips Committee recommendation.
I think all this confusion that has arisen on the benches opposite on this subject is due to a certain misunderstanding of the future position of the Fund, and in particular the failure to appreciate that the Exchequer contribution is not the only element in the burden on the Exchequer as it might well have been in earlier days, but that we have to take into account the liability of the Exchequer to make up by supplementary payments the deficits into which the Fund will shortly go.
I was rather surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Battersea, North—I think a little petulantly—grumbling because the expected deficit of the Fund did not develop as soon as he had hoped—

Mr. Jay: Contemplated.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I thought, from the right hon. Gentleman's unhappiness in the delay of the arrival of this deficit, he hoped it would have come sooner, but he prefers the word "contemplated."
I am extremely glad that that has not arisen, but it is sheer wishful thinking on the part of the right hon. Gentleman in

the face of the figures to dispute the imminence of this deficit now.
We must take account, as I say, of the Exchequer liability to make deficiency payments. For those hon. Members who are disposed to think that the Exchequer's part in this is inadequate let me recall the figures I used on Second Reading, that the total capital liabilities of the National Insurance Fund will amount, when this Bill is law, to £42,000 million, of which under present arrangements some £17,500 million falls on the Exchequer.

Mr. T. Brown: Mr. T. Brown rose—

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I said the total capital value of the liabilities of the Fund as from when the Bill is law. I hope the hon. Member understands me now. I should have thought that that was a pretty substantial contribution by the taxpayers.
Let me take again the argument about the percentage which the Exchequer contribution bears to the total amount provided by the contributors. The 1946 formula, in the first full year of its operation—1949–50—provided 38·6 per cent. as that percentage, and I will make right hon. Gentlemen opposite a present of the fact that under this Bill next year the corresponding figure will be 19·6.

Mr. Jay: Hear, hear.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The right hon. Gentleman's "Hear, hear" indicates the danger, even to his acute intelligence, of falling into the mistake of basing calculations in a matter of this sort on figures for one year. In the changed situation of the Fund—and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will say "Hear, hear" to this—for 1960–61, it is forecast that the figure will be 35·8 per cent., and for 1961–62, 42·9 per cent.

Mr. Jay: As the right hon. Gentleman keeps referring to me, may I ask him this question? Supposing the Government, before 1962, should raise the contribution from employees still further, would not the figures be falsified?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: If any Government should alter the basis of the present Act, the figures will be different. The right hon. Gentleman does not require me to tell him that. What he does require me to tell him is that it is misleading and intellectually dishonest to base a criticism, in the case of a National Insurance


Fund such as this, on the percentage of the Exchequer contribution in one particular year, if we know, as the right hon. Gentleman has every reason to know, that that figure will sharply rise in the following few years.
It indicates another thing. It would he grossly irresponsible, had this Government, in coming to a decision on this matter, concentrated simply on the first year of operation of this scheme, ignoring the fact that, with the increased number of beneficiaries, the liability for deficiency payments must rise in the years that follow.
Therefore, I think we can say that the "swindle," as the right hon. Gentleman calls it—the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion that the Exchequer is getting out of this lightly—simply does not bear examination. If the right hon. Gentleman will allow his mind to wander past the first year of operation of this Bill—and it must wander if he and the Committee are to form a sensible view about the development of this National Insurance Fund—he will realise that that is so.
5.15 p.m.
Then, the right hon. Gentleman said that the Exchequer would be making a profit out of it in the first year. Even in the first year, it will not. Even then, the result of the changes to which the right hon. Member for Battersea, North referred will be to superimpose, taking the savings and loss of revenue together, about £20 million falling on the Exchequer—an additional load on the Exchequer over and above the increase which next year will throw on the Fund a further liability of £44 million. I think that the right hon. Gentleman is not only wrong on his facts in saying that the Exchequer will make a profit even in the first year of operation, but wrong still more in the spirit of his argument if he really thought that any such profit which would result in the first year would have any serious relevance to the developing fortunes of this Fund.
I have shown in truth and in fact how the obligation laid upon the Exchequer, on the percentage basis, varied from that originally contemplated, and the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues must not seek to get away from that. For the right hon. Gentleman to suggest that my right hon. Friend at the

Treasury was responsible for this, and that I was merely a passive and consenting party, shows that he does not know me very well, and it simply is not borne out by the facts.
The point on the burden of the contribution is a real and understandable point, but I think that we must look at this matter realistically. I see that the hon. Member for Coventry, East is now in his place.

Mr. R. H. S. Crossman: I apologise for being absent during the earlier part of the Minister's speech.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I quite understand, the hon. Gentleman has obligations that make demands on him. While he is here I will make reference to one or two points concerning the scheme for which the hon. Gentleman is responsible, and which does contemplate very substantial increases in contributions.
On his own figures, as I understand them, the total employee contribution under this Bill of 9s. 5d. will be reached at earnings of £10 5s. under his scheme. I think that the hon. Gentleman himself appreciates, from a footnote which he added to that calculation, that it takes no account either of the National Health Service contribution or of the contribution necessary to pay the £3 short-term benefits. I am not arguing with the right hon. Gentleman about a few shillings, but the figure of 9s. 5d. for the employee's contribution under this scheme intersects the level of wages at the comparatively modest figure of £7 10s.
Therefore, we go on to discuss the matter on the basis that it is contemplated, and rightly so, I agree, that in view of the great increases in earnings and the changes in the value of money, it is right and proper under this scheme to contemplate some increase in contributions. I do not want to weary the Committee by repeating the figures I gave on Second Reading, but the Committee will recall that I pointed out that, as a percentage of average earnings in manufacturing industry, the new contribution is actually lower than contemplated in 1946 and that it is only a little bit higher than in 1948 when the Act came into operation. When one takes into account on the other side of the equation the fact that higher benefits in real terms are being provided, I suggest to the Committee that these contributions as they now stand in the Bill are fully justified.
I must not take the matter further because the right hon. Gentleman has tactfully reminded me about delay, and we have another couple of debates before we come to Third Reading, which we are all anxious to make sure that the Bill receives today. I would ask the Committee not to underestimate the burden being assumed on the part of the Exchequer as the result of this Bill and as a result of the present National Insurance Scheme, on which this Bill is to be superimposed. Even in 1958–59 the total burden on the Exchequer will be little short of £140 million. It will rise by 1964–65 to £357 million, if the present basis is maintained.
Whatever criticisms may be made—and let me say that I welcome them, and that I am glad to have the opportunity of dealing with criticisms of the Bill—I must say that the criticism that under this Bill, we shall be imposing an insufficient burden on the taxpayer, in the light of the figures I have given, is an argument that will not stand up. On the contrary, we are more likely to be subjected to criticism because of the very heavy burden we are asking the community to assume on behalf of the aged and disabled sections of the population.

Mr. H. A. Marquand: The Minister rather poked fun at the Amendments which we have put on the Notice Paper, and pointed out, quite rightly, that if they were taken literally and exactly, they would involve a much heavier load on the Exchequer without any corresponding reduction in the burden on the contributor. This is easily explained. We could not put down any Amendments until after the Second Reading of the Bill, and we had to work hard on the Bill during the Thursday. We put our Amendments down deliberately on Thursday night because we hoped it would help the right hon. Gentleman in the preparation of his notes for the debates on the Committee stage. We are perfectly well aware that the reduction of a halfpenny is not significant. We had neither the time nor the statistical staff at our disposal to work out the exact figure by which the contribution might be reduced in order to enable the Exchequer supplement to be increased by the amount which we propose.
When we come to the point of Division, as we shall do, we propose to

divide on those of our Amendments which propose an increase in the Exchequer supplement. The whole point is that if our Amendments are carried, imposing some increase in the Exchequer supplement, then, of course, it would have to follow, as night follows day, that a reduction in the contribution that is needed from the contributor would result.
The right hon. Gentleman said that he would resist the temptation to support my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) in supporting my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay), but I hope the right hon. Gentleman realises that very much more than the supporting of one hon. Member on this side of the Committee in his support for another is involved here. I hope the right hon. Gentleman realises that the very fact that my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North is a prominent and active member of his trade union and has held office in it carries a great deal of weight and significance in this debate.
What we are putting forward today, as the Minister knows very well, is the considered view of the Trades Union Congress, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman has not forgotten how the Trades Union Congress has reiterated again and again the view that if there were to be further increases in flat-rate contributions there ought to be an increase in the Exchequer supplement.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North has done a good service in reminding us this afternoon that the reduction in the Exchequer supplement made in 1951 was made deliberately as a temporary measure. It was explicitly stated at that time that it was provisional pending a quinquennial review of the whole scheme in 1954. Opportunities have since been had to study the working of the scheme, and the opportunity given now to study the change in the scheme leaves no one in doubt that the time has come to restore the Exchequer supplement to the level at which it stood in 1946 and from which it was changed in 1951.
Whatever was right or wrong in 1951, it seems to me, is entirely irrelevant at the present time. What is happening now under these proposals is a


deliberate attempt to increase the burden on the contributor so markedly that it becomes, as my right hon. Friend said, a regressive tax falling much too heavily upon the lower paid wage earner. Therefore, we propose to shift that burden from the lower paid wage earner on to the taxpayer. The taxpayer is, of course, in part, the contributor. We know that perfectly well. But the shifting of the burden in this way from the flat-rate contribution on to the graduated Income Tax will spread the burden more fairly. It will impose it less heavily on the lowest paid wage earner and more heavily on the better paid wage earner and will impose some of it on the wealthy Supertax payer and profit earner who always profits, as I said yesterday, from the process of inflation which is the main cause of concern to increase benefits at the present time.
We feel very strongly about the failure of the Government to increase the Exchequer supplement at a time when they are proposing a big, and I admit some necessary, increase in contributions because it seems to us to be in line with the Government's whole General fiscal policy of redistributing the income of the nation in favour of the profit earner and the Surtax payer. The Government have deliberately taken away reliefs which existed for the poor in the form of cheap milk for children or subsidised bread for all and have handed over the money saved in this way by way of reliefs to the higher Income Tax and Surtax payers.
It is true that, in face of these protests, the Government have made some adjustment in the social services of the country, but even in regard to the social services, when they got the chance, they laid a heavy burden on the poorest of the poor by placing increased charges on Health Service appliances and medicine. Every time the Government have the opportunity to redistribute the wealth of the country they seize it in favour of the class that supports them and against the class which we on this side of the Committee represent.
The Minister told us that his present scheme is a first-class scheme for the contributors, that on the new rates of contribution to be paid by the employers plus the State—the other contributor—the insured person will get a good bargain. I do not doubt it. We have never doubted

for a moment, and are delighted to find the Minister agreeing with us, that State insurance is a good deal better bargain for the workers than private insurance That is proved by the figures which the right hon. Gentleman gave us.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: And yet hon. Gentleman opposite call it a swindle.

Mr. Marquand: A State insurance is always a better buy in this way, and always must be.

Mr. J. C. Jennings: Would that apply to private superannuation schemes too?

Mr. Marquand: It probably applies to a good many of them, yes. State insurance, generally speaking, is a better buy.
The question at issue this afternoon is not whether it is a good bargain, generally speaking and in broad general terms, but whether it is as good a bargain as it used to be and whether the method of finance adopted places too heavy a load on the lower paid worker. When we examine the figures we remain convinced that the bargain was a better bargain when it was first started and that it would be a better bargain now if only the change which we seek to introduce by our Amendments were accepted by the Committee.
Whereas in 1946 it was estimated that by 1958 the contributions of the employers and employed, £334 million, would constitute 51 per cent. of the cost of benefit, £545 million, under these proposals they are to constitute 79 per cent. of the benefit. The employers and employed together were by now, according to the reckoning in 1946, going to pay 51 per cent. of the cost of benefit. Under the Bill they are being required to pay 79 per cent. of that cost.
To put it in another way, the Actuary's Report on the 1954 Bill anticipated an overall deficit in 1957–58. After allowing not only for contributions but for normal Exchequer supplement it was anticipated that by this year there would be an overall deficit in the Fund of £54 million. At that point, the State would have to sub-vent the Fund in respect of those large numbers of persons who had not paid an actuarial contribution.
That year has now arrived, and the Bill proposes to raise the contributions so that


there is an overall surplus of £7 million. The day of the deficit is steadily being pushed forward. Indeed, I think that was part of the right hon. Gentleman's case when he spoke just now. But when the nation accepted the all-inclusive Beveridge Plan in 1942 and incorporated it into law in 1946 we all understood that one day the taxpayer would have to come to the aid of the Plan because of the larger numbers brought in who, as I said, must become entitled to benefit before they have paid an actuarial contribution.
It was then agreed that something larger than the actuarial contribution should be charged on the new entrants. The man was to pay 8d. and the employer 7d. over and above what was required on the actuarial contribution. But this Bill puts the actuarial contribution at 1s. 3d. for the man and 1s. 2d. for the employer. Proposals of this kind might be acceptable if they were related proportionately to the income of the contributors, but when they are flat-rate contributions and when the flat rate is increased by this amount we are bound to say that they are a complete departure from the original conception of the scheme.
My hon. Friend the Member for Feltham (Mr. Hunter) reminded us that when Mr. David Lloyd George first launched social insurance in this country he promised 9d. for 4d. The Minister is now offering 9d. for 10d. That is how the calculation works out now. We feel that it is unquestionably wrong that so heavy a burden should be placed on the contributors. The proportions are wrong and the increase levied on the contributors becomes a regressive tax. The proportions ought to be redistributed. The tax ought to be taken off the lower paid worker and shouldered by the general Income Tax payer of the country. We propose to divide the House on this important Amendment.

5.30 p.m.

Dame Irene Ward: I must apologise for not having been in the Chamber to hear the whole of this discussion, but I had another engagement which I could not avoid. I should very much dislike letting these Amendments be put to the Committee without making my observations on the general level of contributions and the Exchequer payment. I was very glad to hear the right

hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand) talk about the burden on the lower-paid workers. I fully agree with him.
The position of the lower-paid workers has always been a very difficult one. In my association with my constituents over quite a reasonable period in investigating the question of contributions to the National Insurance Fund, I have come across very many heart-rending cases of responsible men and women on low salaries and incomes having to meet the full burden of contributions. I agree that an increase in the contributions to meet the additional retirement pension has placed an enormous burden on people who can ill afford to find these additional contributions.
I have argued this case for a very long time with members of my Government but, up to the moment, without success. I feel rather jubilant today, however, because I listened with very great care to what the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East said about placing a greater burden on the general taxpayer. Although, unfortunately, I was not able to hear it, I also gather that the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) had accused my Government of perpetrating a swindle on the contributors because of the situation now arising in relation to the Exchequer contribution.
I have been arguing for a very long time that Income Tax relief which is given in respect of National Insurance contributions to those who pay Income Tax should be abolished; and I think it is fair to assume that those who pay Income Tax are in a better position to pay increased contributions than those who do not pay Income Tax. In the main, the people who are in the lower-income groups are the people who do not pay Income Tax. I have always felt that it was quite wrong that those who pay Income Tax should get their National Insurance benefits cheaper than those who do not pay Income Tax. I know that to abolish the remission to Income Tax payers would not reduce the contribution of the lower-income groups, but at least we should have the satisfaction of knowing that the higher-income groups did not get the benefits at a cheaper rate than those who did not pay Income Tax and did not therefore attract Income Tax reliefs.
When the right hon. Member for Battersea, North accused my right hon. Friend of perpetrating a swindle on the contributor I venture to say that the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time when the National Insurance Act, 1946, was introduced perpetrated a swindle on those in the lower-income bracketbecause, by carefully providing Income Tax relief for those who paid Income Tax—though I believe that Surtax payers were not included—he ensured that those who paid Income Tax, especially those in the late entrants scheme, had their insurance benefits at a personally lower charge than did those who had to pay the full contributions.
The last time that I asked what the Income Tax reliefs in respect of insurance contributions cost the Treasury, the figure was given by the Financial Secretary as about £34 million per annum. I hope that the Minister will convey to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that I, and I think most of my hon. Friends, would prefer that the £34 million should be paid into the Insurance Fund, rather than that it should be paid to people who are in the higher-income groups, and that the money should be used to reduce the contributions for those who are in the lower-income brackets. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am delighted that hon. and right hon. Members opposite should keep saying "Hear, hear" but, of course, they are responsible for this anomaly. They are responsible for the swindle on those in the lower-income groups who have had to pay more for their retirement pensions and other benefits. I am delighted to know that hon. and right hon. Members opposite are now seeing the error of their ways.
The argument put forward against me by Conservative Chancellors of the Exchequer has been that when insurance benefits are drawn they are taxable. That is true, and those who do not pay Income Tax during their working years, and have to pay the full contributions to keep themselves insured, are not likely when they retire and draw retirement pension to have to submit their incomes to taxation. At the same time, one cannot ensure that the people who have to pay tax in retirement are exactly the same people as those who received Income Tax reliefs in the earlier stages. Some people will get it both ways—no tax and tax reliefs. Nor

is the fact altered that the people who do not pay tax never had the benefit of Income Tax reliefs.
As far as I can see, there is no possible way of making up to them the discrepancy and the deficiency under which they have suffered or compensating them for having had to pay more for their insurance benefits than those who are better off. This is a very difficult dilemma to resolve. I hope that I may be able to persuade my right hon. Friend to make representations to the Treasury to have this matter put right in the next Budget. I am not very good at mathematics, but I calculate that a young single man of 21 or 25, doing a skilled job and drawing a quite substantial wage, receives Income Tax relief of at least £10 a year over a very long period in respect of his National Insurance contributions. This relief substantially reduces the cost of his contribution to the National Insurance Fund and, of course, imposes a charge on the Treasury in respect of these reliefs.
A deduction of £10 a year by way of Income Tax relief from the total contributions over the years is a substantial amount which reduces the cost of the insurance benefits considerably to the person concerned. I hope, therefore, that when the next Budget comes along, the request of right hon. Gentlemen opposite will be granted for an amendment of their own Act—which is what it amounts to—so that the taxpayer accepts a proper share of the burden, and thus the position between the higher and lower income groups will be equalised.
I hope that my right hon. Friend will hand on this information to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I hope that the Chancellor will be brave enough to see that £34 million per annum from Exchequer funds is lost in respect of those who draw Income Tax relief in this way. I hope that the right hon. Gentlemen opposite, and all those who support them, will support the Chancellor and thus make the position of the two groups equal.
I hope that right hon. Gentlemen opposite realise what a swindle they have perpetrated on those who cannot defend themselves by causing widows, struggling spinsters and men in the lower-income brackets to pay more for their insurance contributions than others. I am not in the least surprised that right hon. Gentlemen opposite did not draw attention to


what they themselves did, when they were making such grand speeches about the burden on the contributors.
I do not know whether I can persuade my right hon. Friend to get to his feet again. Of course, I agree that increases in retirement pensions have to be paid for by the employers, the employed and the Exchequer. I do not know whether I can persuade my right hon. Friend now to give me an assurance—particularly having regard to the fact that he listened to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Middlesbrough, East—that he will discuss this matter with the Chancellor and will assure my right hon. Friend that if he makes this new arrangement, it will at any rate help towards a general scheme of equality, and that there will be no trouble from right hon. and hon. Gentlemen and hon. Ladies opposite during the next Budget debates. I should then have the greatest pleasure in saying that, at any rate, my Government realised that those in the lower-income groups were entitled to a fair deal and should not have a greater burden of contribution placed on them than those drawing higher incomes.

Mr. Charles Royle: Before the hon. Lady sits down, would she remind the Committee what party has been in power during the last six years, and also who is now proposing to increase the contribution?

Dame Irene Ward: That is hardly a valid interruption. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Not at all, because my right hon. Friend is offering increased retirement pensions, and he has done much more for the old people than anybody upon the other side of the Committee. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that my party has been in power for some considerable time, but what I cannot understand is the humbug of the argument from hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, who know that the basis of the argument I have deployed today has arisen from the fact that they themselves gave reliefs from the Exchequer to those who pay Income Tax, which they denied to those who do not have taxable incomes. That makes sheer nonsense and humbug of their case, and I am glad to have an opportunity to say so.

5.45 p.m.

Dr. Horace King: I apologise for keeping the Committee a few minutes, but the simple answer to the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) is that, in spite of her speech, she will be supporting a Government who are increasing the burden on the lowest-income groups.

Dame Irene Ward: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for interrupting him, I am a perfectly honourable person and I shall not be supporting the Government. I shall not be casting a vote. I would not vote with hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, who have behaved in this extraordinary way, but I shall certainly not be voting against the Amendment. That is how my position is looked after.

Dr. King: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that assurance. In view of the vehemence of her speech, I thought she ought to vote with the Opposition. I am detaining the Committee for a short time merely because of the romantic version given by the Minister of the debate in 1951, and to tell him that when he was taunting this side of the Committee with being illogical about the respective contributions from the workers and the State the picture he gave was so unreal, according to what I remembered, that I referred to HANSARD to find out how wrong he was.
I will stop when the Minister chooses to intervene to correct me, but the facts are that Mr. Osbert Peake did not object to the cutting of the Treasury contribution. He objected to the technical way in which it was done. He thought some proportion ought to remain between the Treasury contribution and the contributions of the workers and the employers, but he did not mind the proportion being lowered. He did not in any way suggest that the workers' contribution ought to be reduced. The entire case he made in an earlier stage of the debate on the Bill was a technical one, and when the Labour Government at the time made a change by varying the proportion instead of by a fixed amount, he not only declared himself satisfied but he supported them


entirely. Mr. Osbert Peake said in Committee:
It has seemed of vital importance to me that a regular and a substantial Exchequer contribution to the Fund should continue which should be proportionate to the contributions of employees. While holding that view very strongly, I shared the doubts of the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it was wise to allow this Fund to continue to increase annually as it has done in recent years through unemployment having fallen so far below the level anticipated…The proposals tabled by the Minister will satisfy these two conditions, that is to maintain a substantial Exchequer contribution to the Fund, and at the same time for the next four years to get rid of the annual growth in the Fund.
He went on to attack certain hon. Members who wanted to reduce the workers' contribution in proportion to the reduction that was being made in the State contribution, and said:
I think that there is justification for some reduction in the regular Exchequer contribution, which was fixed on the high side in 1946. It would obviously be contrary to the Chancellor's general financial policy to increase purchasing power by an all-round reduction in contributions at present."—[OFFICAL REPORT, 9th May, 1951; Vol. 487, c. 1968 and 1969.]
What the Labour Government did at that time as a temporary measure was regarded by the bulk of the House as a bookkeeping transaction merely to prevent a surplus from accumulating, and it had the full support of the chief spokesman for the Tory Opposition at that time. It is worth putting on record that the only purists in the House at that time were the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton), who refused to be convinced, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan).

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: As I am sure the hon. Member will agree, he is referring to the Amendment introduced by the then Government to the original proposal which had been introduced by the right hon. Lady the Member for Warrington (Dr. Summerskill). What my noble Friend, as he now is, was expressing satisfaction in was the removal from that Bill of the proposed reduction of the Exchequer contribution by 6d. and the substitution of the one-seventh formula which, as far as Class I is concerned, still persists. There is no misunderstanding about it.

Mr. McKay: I do not want to take up time unnecessarily, but I agree entirely with the spirit displayed by the hon.

Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward). In principle, she is quite right.
I tried to obtain some information from the Minister about the whole matter of taxation relief and how it affects insurance contributions, as well as how it affects the great principle which we always propound that we all pay the same amount and get the same benefits. People have said that from certain points of view there has been a swindle. In my view there is a genuine swindle now. We allow a system under a great national scheme whereby, in practice, the higher paid workers and people with still higher incomes, instead of paying the full amount of insurance contribution, are given a substantial reduction in a backhanded way. If, after reasonable examination, we can show that, with practically no extra burden upon the Exchequer, we can reduce the contribution of each worker by 9d. a week, I suggest that it is a matter for consideration, particularly by hon. Members on this side of the Committee. We are pleading for the lower paid workers.
How can this reduction be brought about? I am not dealing with the amount of money paid by the employer, but am restricting my remarks entirely to the contribution made by the remainder who participate in the insurance scheme. The Minister did not dispute this argument; he had not gone into the matter and he could not dispute it. As far as we can gather, practically £30 million is given back to the higher-paid workers and others with even higher incomes in a backhanded way. If we take that £30 million as a proportion of the total being paid in contributions at the moment, it comes to exactly one-twelfth of the contributions; and one-twelfth of a man's contribution is about 9d.
Consequently, simply by passing a Regulation to the effect that the contribution for pension shall not be allowed as a tax relief in future we can bring about a relief to the Exchequer of £30 million, which would enable the Minister, without more ado, to reduce the workers' contributions by 9d. each. The hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth gave a figure of £10 as the tax relief received. She was a long way out. It is more like £5 a year.
There was an important fact which she seemed to forget, probably because of her


attitude as a Tory towards employers; perhaps she is more partial to the employers than she is to the lower paid workers. What is the position in respect of the contribution of £350 million paid by the employers? We all know that the employers receive about £175 million in taxation relief on that £350 million; they are getting about 50 per cent. relief in respect of taxation.
The Minister dealt in a lighthearted way with the questions put to him, but I want to put it to the present Government and to any future Government that we must be loyal to the lower paid workers. Let us admit that there is a weakness in the scheme and that the higher paid members of the community are being given some backhanded relief. It is not equitable. There is a swindle somewhere. Let us say that in future we shall all pay alike in fact as well as in theory.
I did not entirely follow the Minister's argument, but the right hon. Gentleman said that if we abolished this taxation relief, then some relief which the pensioners receive at present might be taken away. I would point out to him that a married couple today have to have an income of £320 before they pay Income Tax at all. I therefore cannot see how

there would be any after effect on future pensions if we took the step I have suggested.

I am serious about this, and I want to emphasise what the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth said. We have an injustice here which ought to be prevented. To prevent it, the Government, whichever party is in office, have to show themselves more humane and more genuine. They have to introduce a system by which all workers pay the same and by which there is the same cost to everyone. Moreover, they should say, "In any new scheme we are not prepared to put on paper a statement that the employers are paying a certain amount of money when, in fact, we know that they are receiving nearly 50 per cent. back in taxation relief." I will not go further into how this can be done, as I want to speak on the subject on another Amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Amendment proposed: In page 11, line 23, leave out from "13 12 33 26" to end of line and insert:

21 20 47 36.—[Mr. Jay.]

Queston put, That "13 12 33 26" stand part of the Schedule:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 243, Noes 205.

Division No. 11.]
AYES
[6.0 p.m.


Agnew, Sir Peter
Bryan, P.
Farey-Jones, F. W.


Aitken, W. T.
Burden, F. F. A.
Fell, A.


Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)
Butcher, Sir Herbert
Finlay, Graeme


Alport, C. J. M.
Butter, Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron Walden)
Fisher, Nigel


Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)
Campbell, Sir David
Fort, R.


Amory, Rt. Hn. Heathcoat (Tiverton)
Carr, Robert
Foster, John


Armstrong, C. W.
Cary, Sir Robert
Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)


Ashton, H.
Channon, Sir Henry
Fraser, Sir Ian (M'cmbe &amp; Lonsdale)


Astor, Hon. J. J.
Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)
Freeth, Denzil


Atkins, H. E.
Conant, Maj. Sir Roger
Gammans, Lady


Baldwin, A. E.
Cooke, Robert
Garner-Evans, E. H.


Balniel, Lord
Cooper, A. E.
Glyn, Col. Richard H.


Barlow, Sir John
Corfield, Capt. F. V.
Godber, J. B.


Barter, John
Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Gomme-Duncan, Col. Sir Alan


Baxter, Sir Beverley
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Goodhart, Philip


Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)
Crowder, Petre (Ruislip—Northwood)
Gower, H. R.


Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)
Cunningham, Knox
Graham, Sir Fergus


Bonnett, Dr. Reginald
Currie, G. B. H.
Grant, W. (Woodside)


Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)
Davidson, Viscountess
Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich)


Bidgood, J. C.
D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Green, A.


Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
Deedes, W. F.
Gresham Cooke, R.


Bishop, F. P.
Digby, Simon Wingfield
Grimond, J.


Boothby, Sir Robert
Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.


Bossom, Sir Alfred
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.
Gurden, Harold


Bowen, E. R. (Cardigan)
Doughty, C. J. A.
Hall, John (Wycombe)


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.
Drayson, G. B.
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)


Boyle, Sir Edward
du Cann, E. D. L.
Harris, Reader (Heston)


Braine, B. R.
Duncan, Sir James
Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon)


Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)
Duthie, W. S.
Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)
Harvey, Sir Arthur (Macclesfd)


Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry
Elliott, R.W. (N'castle upon Tyne, N.)
Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)


Brooman-White, R. C.
Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn
Hay, John


Browne, J. Nixon (Craigton)
Errington, Sir Eric
Heald, Rt. Hon, Sir Lionel




Heath, Rt. Hon. E. R. G.
Macdonald, Sir Peter
Redmayne, M.


Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Mackeson, Brig. Sir Harry
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Henderson-Stewart, Sir James
Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)
Ridsdale, J. E.


Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.
McLaughlin, Mrs. P.
Rippon, A. G. F.


Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Lancaster)
Robson Brown, Sir William


Hill, John (S. Norfolk)
McLean, Neil (Inverness)
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)


Hinchingbrooke, viscount
Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)
Roper, Sir Harold


Hirst, Geoffrey
MacLeod, John (Ross &amp; Cromarty)
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard


Hobson, John (Warwick &amp; Leam'gt'n)
Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)
Russell, R. S.


Holland-Martin, C. J.
Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)
Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.


Hope, Lord John
Maddan, Martin
Sharples, R. C.


Hornby, R. P.
Maitland, Cdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)
Shepherd, William


Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.
Maitland, Hon. Patrick (Lanark)
Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)


Horobin, Sir Ian
Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.
Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)


Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Dame Florence
Markham, Major Sir Frank
Spearman, Sir Alexander


Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)
Marshall, Douglas
Speir, R. M.


Howard, John (Test)
Maude, Angus
Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)


Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.
Maudling, Rt. Hon. R.
Steward, Sir William (Woolwich, W.)


Hughes-Young, M. H. C.
Mawby, R. L.
Storey, S.


Hulbert, Sir Norman
Maydon, Lt.-Comdr, S. L. C.
Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)


Kurd, A. R.
Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.
Studholme, Sir Henry


Hutchison, Michael Clark (E'b'gh, S.)
Molson, Rt. Hon. Hugh
Summers, Sir Spencer


Hutchison, SirlanClark (E'b'gh, W.)
Morrison, John (Salisbury)
Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington)


Hutchison, Sir James (Scotstoun)
Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


Hyde, Montgomery
Nabarro, G. D. N.
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)


Iremonger, T. L.
Nairn, D. L. S.
Teeling, W.


Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Neave, Airey
Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)


Jennings, J. C. (Burton)
Nicholls, Harmar
Thomas, P. J. M. (Conway)


Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)
Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. &amp; Chr'ch)
Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, S.)


Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Nugent, G. R. H.
Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. P.


Joynson-Hicks, Hon. Sir Lancelot
Oakshott, H. D.
Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.)


Kaberry, D.
O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)
Tilney, John (Wavertree)


Keegan, D.
Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.


Kerby, Capt. H. B.
Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Weston-S-Mare)
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.


Kershaw, J. A.
Osborne, C.
Vickers, Miss Joan


Kimball, M.
Page, R. G.
Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)


Kirk, P. M.
Pannell, N. A. (Kirkdale)
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Derek


Lagden, G. W.
Partridge, E.
Wall, Major Patrick


Lambton, Viscount
Pickthorn, K. W. M.
Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold


Leavey, J. A.
Pike, Miss Mervyn
Webbe, Sir H.


Leburn, W. G.
Pilkington, Capt. R. A.
Whitelaw, W. S. I.


Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Pitman, I. J.
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)
Pitt, Miss E. M.
Wills, G. (Bridgwater)


Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)
Pott, H. P.
Wood, Hon. R.


Lindsay, Martin (Solihull)
Powell, J. Enoch
Woollam, John Victor


Linstead, Sir H. N.
Price, David (Eastleigh)



Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Low, Rt. Hon. Sir Toby
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.
Mr. Barber and Mr. Gibson-Watt.


Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Rawlinson, Peter



McAdden, S. J.






NOES


Ainsley, J. W.
Cove, W. G.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)


Albu, A. H.
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Griffiths, William (Exchange)


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Cronin, J. D.
Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)


Allen, Arthur (Botworth)
Crossman, R. H. S.
Hamilton, W. W.


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Cullen, Mrs. A.
Hannan, W.


Awbery, S. S.
Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Harrison, J. (Nottingham, N.)


Bacon, Miss Alice
Darling, George (Hillsborough)
Hastings, S.


Balfour, A.
Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)
Hayman, F. H.


Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Davies, Harold (Leek)
Herbison, Miss M.


Beswick, Frank
Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)
Holmes, Horace


Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)
Delargy, H. J.
Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)


Blackburn, F.
Diamond, John
Howell, Denis (All Saints)


Blenkinsop, A.
Dodds, N. N.
Hoy, J. H.


Blyton, W. R.
Dugdale, Rt. Hn. John (W. Brmwch)
Hubbard, T. F.


Boardman, H.
Edelman, M.
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)
Hunter, A. E.


Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S.W.)
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)


Bowles, F. G.
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)


Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth
Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)
Irving, Sydney (Dartford)


Brookway, A. P.
Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)
Janner, B.


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Finch, H. J.
Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.


Burke, W. A.
Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Jeger, Mrs. Lena (Holbn &amp; St. Pncs, S.)


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.
Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Car'then)
Johnson, James (Rugby)


Callaghan, L. J.
Gibson, C. W.
Jones, Rt. Hon. A. Creech (Wakefield)


Champion, A. J.
Gooch, E. G.
Jones, David (The Hartlepools)


Clunie, J.
Greenwood, Anthony
Jones, Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)


Coldrick, W.
Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.
Jones, Jack (Rotherham)


Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead)
Grey, C. F.
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)







Kenyon, C.
Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne valley)
Steele, T.


Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Palmer, A. M. F.
Stewart, Michael (Fulham)


King, Dr. H. M.
Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)
Stones, W. (Consett)


Lawson, G. M.
Pargiter, G. A.
Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.


Ledger, R. J.
Parker, J.
Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)


Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Parkin, B. T.
Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)


Lever, Harold (Cheetham)
Paton, John
Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.


Lindgren, G. S.
Pearson, A.
Swingler, S. T.


Lipton, Marcus
Peart, T. F.
Sylvester, G. O.


Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Pentland, N.
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


MacColl, J. E.
Plummer, Sir Leslie
Taylor, John (West Lothian)


MacDermot, Niall
Popplewell, E.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)


McInnes, J.
Prentice, R. E.
Thornton, E.


McKay, John (Wallsend)
Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)
Timmons, J.


McLeavy, Frank
Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn


MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)
Probert, A. R.
Usborne, H. C.


MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Proctor, W. T.
Viant, S. P.


Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Pryde, D. J.
Watkins, T. E.


Mann, Mrs. Jean
Randall, H. E.
Weitzman, D.


Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.
Rankin, John
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Mason, Roy
Redhead, E. C.
Wheeldon, W. E.


Mellish, R. J.
Reeves, J.
White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)


Messer, Sir F.
Reid, William
White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)


Mikardo, Ian
Robens, Rt. Hon. A.
Wigg, George


Mitchison, G. R.
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Willey, Frederick


Monslow, W.
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)
Williams, David (Neath)


Moody, A. S.
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)
Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Ab'tillery)


Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)
Ross, William
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)


Mort, D. L.
Royle, C.
Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)


Moss, R.
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.
Willis, Eustace (Edinburgh, E.)


Moyle, A.
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)
Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)
Winterbottom, Richard


Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. (Derby, S.)
Skeffington, A. M.
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


O'Brien, Sir Thomas
Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke, N.)
Woof, R. E.


Oliver, G. H
Slater, J. (Sedgefield)
Yates, V. (Ladywood)


Orbach, M
Snow, J. W.
Zilliacus, K.


Oswald, T.
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank



Owen, W. J.
Sparks, J. A.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:




Mr. Deer and Mr. Short.

Schedule agreed to.

Orders of the Day — Fourth Schedule.—(RATES OF BENEFIT UNDER NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT, 1946.)

Mr. Marquand: I beg to move, in page 12, line 17, to leave out "15 0/7 0" and insert "20 0/12 0".

The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Gordon Touche): I think that it would be convenient to discuss this and all the other Amendments to the Schedule together.

Mr. Marquand: Yes, Sir Gordon. It is entirely convenient to take all the remaining Amendments standing in the names of my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself to the Fourth Schedule because they all deal with the same subject, namely, the amount of allowance which ought to be paid to persons drawing benefit under the National Insurance Scheme in respect of their dependent children.
We are here concerned with the children of parents who are unemployed, sick, widowed, disabled—because there were Amendments to an earlier Schedule which I did not move, in order to help the Committee in the passage of the Bill, but which it would be necessary to make if the Amendment I am now

moving were carried. I am sure that the Government would then agree to make the necessary Amendments in the earlier Schedule—and even, in some cases, with the dependent children of retirement pensioners.
6.15 p.m.
These are children whose parents have suffered a great adversity. The Committee will probably feel with me that whoever suffers from the adversities of unemployment, sickness, widowhood, death, and so on, it should not be the children. During the discussion of the last Amendment I understand that the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) was so moved by my argument that she abstained from supporting the Government. I feel fully confident that, for all the harshness of her attacks on hon. Members on this side of the Committee, her heart feels so warmly for those afflicted that on this Amendment she will come into the Lobby with us.

Dame Irene Ward: I do not think that you are worth going into the Lobby with.

Mr. Marquand: The hon. Lady must not allow her antagonism to my right hon. Friends and myself to divert her in any way from supporting the cause of


children. I hope that she will agree that the children should not suffer even if the parents fall upon adversity.
It is the duty and the interest of the nation to succour its children above all. It is for that reason that dependants' allowances are paid both from the Indus- trial Injuries Fund and the National Insurance Fund. The question that we have to ask ourselves is whether those allowances are sufficient to care for the welfare of these children in the way that we should like, and whether the increases provided under the Bill are sufficient.
The sad fact is that of the sick, unemployed and widowed who have to resort to National Assistance a very large proportion consists of parents of large families. It is still true that children are the chief cause of poverty. Large numbers of those who draw benefits under the National Insurance Scheme and find those benefits inadequate to maintain them above subsistence level, and there-fore have to go to the Assistance Board, are forced to do so because they have large numbers of children.
These are undeniable facts. A recent report of the National Assistance Board showed that there were 300,000 children in households to whom National Assistance was paid. The latest figure may be a little more or less—I hope that it is less—hut it would be a very large figure even if it were now only 200,000. If we could see all those children gathered together in one place we would have some idea of their dimensions. They would form a crowd as large as the populations of many of our biggest cities, represented by two Members. If there were 300,000 children, they would represent a number as big as the populations of cities represented very often by three Members.
The vast majority of these children whose families are drawing National Assistance are not satisfactorily cared for by the nation. The only way to care for them is by so raising the dependants' allowance that they will get at least above National Assistance level, so that their parents will no longer have to resort to the means test and frequent applications for aid for their children, which is a necessity for anybody living on National Assistance.
Some time ago improvements were made in regard to the children of widows. My right hon. Friend the Member for

Warrington (Dr. Summerskill) was responsible for the initiation of the differential allowance for the children of widows. It was a good move, and the House came to a sensible and correct decision when it decided that the difficulties of the young widow trying to keep a family were so great that special help should be given to her over and above the help given to married couples.
That was right, and the Amendments do not suggest any alteration in the differential in favour of the widow, but I feel that we must now try to make a better provision for the children of households in which both parents are living.
The total benefits now paid under our National Insurance system for unemployment, sickness and other hazards represents a very big drop below the average wage rates. The drop which a family has to face in its standard of living when the breadwinner becomes ill for any period longer than a few weeks, or the drop which occurs when the breadwinner becomes unemployed for a similar period, is very severe. I sometimes wonder what would happen if severe unemployment came again to this country and average wage earners had to come down to the present level of unemployment benefit with the present allowances for their children. There would be white-hot indignation all over the country.
The effect of the Amendment would be to lessen the drop for those who have children to support. It would give the afflicted parents 20s. a week for each child. The last food survey, published by the Government, shows that the average expenditure per person on food is 28s. 6d. a week. We pay 20s. for the dependent child of a person who has no other resources than the bare 40s., or 50s. as it will now be. That amount is not merely to feed, but to maintain a child, I do not say that it need cost 28s. 6d. for food, but that is the average figure, and I am sure that the cost is remarkably near that figure. A child needs more food than the average adult person. Children are growing and may need carefully selected food. I do not believe it possible today for their parents to give them sufficient food on the allowance suggested in the Bill.
There are all the additional requirements which have to be met. Children's


shoes, socks and stockings wear out faster than those of adults. As they grow, their clothing needs continually to be replaced. Children also need other things beside food—soap and toothpaste—and their laundry is more than that of other people. Expenditure has to be incurred for children which goes beyond the average required for grown-ups. I suggest that the figure which is paid today and even the figure suggested in the Bill is not sufficient to meet these necessary expenditures.
It will be said that there are free meals in schools available for the children of the "afflicted," as I will call them, so as not to keep repeating the terms "sick," "unemployed," and the rest. There are such meals available, but to get them, or the various extras which some generous local authorities may provide, their parents must resort to a means test and disclose their income, or go to the National Assistance Board.
Surely we wish to keep these children off National Assistance; to save their parents from the necessity of applying for National Assistance, and give them a pension plus allowances which will be sufficient to maintain the family if not in comfort and at the standard provided by the average wage today, at least at a higher standard than they are forced to adopt now. Anybody who represents a constituency such as mine can take a walk through the streets and see these chronically sick and unemployed and can appreciate the hazards and anxieties they have to endure. Unless these people are exceptionally clever at making do, they cannot maintain their children as they would like, and those children are not given the decent chance in life that we should like them to have.
The increase I propose is very modest, perhaps too modest and I should like to make it higher. But I am trying to arrive at a figure which could be met within the funds available and without the necessity of any further increase in the contribution. I believe that this sort of increase, although modest, would be a great help. When we are asked to raise the guardians' allowance—which we shall do quite willingly—we may ask ourselves, if it is right and proper to give a guardian 27s. 6d., is it not right and proper to give the natural parent, at any rate, 20s.?
Although I am doubtful about it, I will accept the argument that it is necessary to pay more to a guardian to compensate for some of the things they have to give up when they undertake the guardianship of a child. I know that local authorities pay a great deal more than 27s. 6d. to foster parents, but I suggest that if 27s. 6d. is a right amount for a guardian surely 20s. is not too much for a parent.
No one of us would ever think of keeping a child on 20s. a week. We cannot imagine how we would do it, even were we to attempt to. The argument I shall have to meet will be the old familiar argument that if we raise the benefits payable, particularly during unemployment, too high, we provide an inducement to people not to go to work; to avoid employment or not to seek work after they have become unemployed.
Let us take the example of a parent who earns £7 a week and has four children. I hope that the figures I shall give are right, I do not think that they are very far out. At the present rate of family allowances the parent would be getting 28s. from the State to help maintain his children which would be a total of eight guineas a week. Suppose he became sick. Under the provisions of this Bill his own benefit would be £2 10s. In respect of his wife he would receive £1 10s. with 15s. for the first child and for the second child, and £1 14s. for the other two children; a total of £7 4s., or £1 4s. less than he would receive were he at work and in the lowest wage scale.
6.30 p.m.
Under our proposal the couple would get £4 a week. The first child would get £1, the second £1, and the two other children between them would get £2 4s. making a total of £8 4s. a week, to be compared with the £8 8s. going into the home when the father is at work. It is a narrow difference, I know, but it is also a very low wage on which to keep children. Our concern really must be whether the children are being adequately cared for.
I do not believe that if a parent can earn £8 8s. a week to keep his children when he is able to work and can receive £8 4s. when he is unable to work, he will stop work. There are already adequate checks in the regulations upon people who seek to avoid employment. They


cannot draw unemployment benefit unless they look for work, are available for work, and try to fill the vacancies which are handed to them by the employment exchange.
If they are sick there is the protection of the doctor's certificate, which is reviewed from time to time by the Ministry of Health if they remain very long on sickness benefit. Surely there are enough safeguards against anybody trying to live on the benefit and exploit his children. I doubt very much whether, in our modern society of full employment, there is anything but a tiny fraction of people who would dream for a moment of preferring a life of idleness at home, drawing benefit and avoiding the inspectors of various departments whose job it is to see that people do not draw benefit irregularly. There are, of course, some completely incapable and shiftless parents—

Major Sir Frank Markham: There are some in every constituency.

Mr. Marquand: Yes, a tiny proportion, but the vast majority of people would not do it. They will go to work if they can, because they want to get back to it. They do not want to be at home idle. At any rate, it would be impossible for the vast majority of people to dodge in that way. If any hon. Member says that the vast majority of our working people would do such a shameful thing he had better go to his constituency to say so. I doubt whether any hon. Member believes it or would say it. It is not true; nobody but a bad parent would do it.
There are bad parents, as we see from the newspapers from time to time in cases of child neglect. If there are bad parents who would remain at home, draw children's allowance and deprive their children of food and clothing by spending the money upon themselves, these are the very children we want to protect. If it is our serious intention, as we say continually on both sides of the Committee, to defend the family and hold it together in times of adversity so that it will not split up, some of the children being sent to a children's home and the others to what we used to call the "workhouse", we must assist the children.
We want to give every boy and girl a really fair chance in life. We do not want their parents to have an intolerable job

in providing food, clothing and shelter for them and to be obliged to send them out to work as soon as they leave school so that they can add to the family income. Boys and girls must have a chance to go to grammar school and on to university; they should not be pushed out into life for the sake of the younger children. The only way is to give the family an adequate income all the time. The Amendment which I am moving has that intention.

Sir F. Markham: Could the right hon. Gentleman estimate how much this and the other Opposition's Amendments would cost the country in a full year?

Mr. Marquand: No, I cannot. I leave that to the Minister.

Dr. King: My right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand) has referred to the scandal of unscrupulous people living on the Welfare State. There are bad eggs in every community. It would be outside the scope of the debate to deal in detail with this point. I will merely say that some day the House of Commons will have to deal with the odd person who is hurting the Welfare State by his action.
These are, however, merely odd people, by anyone's count. It is wrong that the wellsprings of charity and of the Welfare State should be choked at any moment because there happen to be some who abuse its benefits, just as it would be wrong that we should remove the tobacco allowance merely because there happened to be an odd person here and there in the country who is abusing it.
One of the bad things in any society is the difference in treatment accorded to different groups children get. The measure of a civilised society in its progress towards a fine civilisation is how far it is adequately caring for all the children. In Britain at the moment, we have still grave differences between the wellbeing of the best-off children and the conditions of the poorest children. It must be a very real tragedy to be a poor child in a rich society like ours. It is worth reminding the Committee that children do not choose to have parents, or to have parents who will or will not survive, or who are going to be rich or poor, or employed or unemployed; yet we still make vast differences between the standards of living allocated to children.


in the various groups—even in those groups for which the State is brought in to make provision and assumes some kind of responsibility.
My right hon. Friend has pointed out that the present allowance to a widow's child is 20s. if it is the first child, and 14s. if it is one of the other children. The value of an unemployed man's first child is 15s. and of his other children 7s. I have never found any mother who could explain why we make a different provision for the first child as against the second. It may be that—

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance (Miss Edith Pitt): Surely the hon. Member forgets family allowances.

Dr. King: I am speaking only about the allowances in the Bill. Family allowance is given to all children in the country.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: Except to the first child.

Dr. King: I cannot understand why we should differentiate between the first and second child. I remember how bitter I was in the early days of the war at the value we placed on the third and fourth children of a serving soldier. We now allow about £100 in our Income Tax assessments for a child. If a man is paying the full rate of Income Tax, if he is well enough off to pay tax at the standard rate, he gets more in allowances to keep his child than we give to the second child of a widow or to the first child of an unemployed man.
My right hon. Friend referred to the task of looking after deprived children. I am glad he did, because I want to give the Committee one or two figures. The cost of maintaining deprived children in Southampton and Hampshire is more than £4 a week per child. In Hampshire we keep 300 children in our various county homes at a cost of £90,000, £300 a year or £6 a week each. We board out 572 children at £82 a year each, and, on average, we are paying foster parents 32s. 6d. a week each. In passing, I may pay tribute to the foster parents of this country who are by no means making a profit out of whatever amount of money they receive for this very noble work of providing deprived children with a better home than they would get elsewhere and

are saving the State about £3 a week per child.
In Hampshire we spend £200 a year per child, or on average £4 a week each. I wondered whether Hampshire was different from the rest of the country. So I inquired and found that the national figure of 61,000 children involves a cost of £11 million, an average of £3 10s. per week per child. That is without the cost of administration, which is another £2 million, which means that, on average, the cost of a deprived child for the country is £4 6s. 6d. a week. Incidentally, those figures are for 1954–55 and the cost must now be much higher. If a child is unfortunate enough—I use the word "unfortunate" because I do not believe there are many wicked children about—to go to an approved school in Hampshire it costs £8 a week each for the sixty-three children in our approved schools. We have twelve boys in a remand home costing £13 a week each. If we send a boy to Borstal the national cost is £8 10s. a week.
It is against those figures that I ask the Committee to consider the very modest Amendments we are proposing to the proposals of the Government. Let us remember that the vast sums I have mentioned are being spent on the children of parents who are neglecting their duty and have neglected their duty to their children. I hope that some day we shall take more drastic steps to punish such parents and to make them contribute to the cost of their children.
The parents concerned in these Amendments are good family folk who are trying to keep their children under most difficult circumstances. There is not an hon. Member who will not give his child or grandchild this Christmas far more than we are asking for the widow to keep her child for a month. We are still taking far too literally the early precept in the Bible about visiting the sins of the fathers, and even the ill-luck of the fathers, on the children of our community.
It is true that the Welfare State is moving towards the goal that one would hope some day we shall see really achieved—equality of opportunity and equality of treatment for our children. I urge any hon. Member, on either side of the Committee, who really believes in children and who cares for children to


vote for this Amendment and so improve the lot of the children of the widow, the sick and the unemployed.

6.45 p.m.

Sir F. Markham: I hope the Committee will oppose these Amendments, because I believe that they introduce and buttress two very dangerous tendencies which have become evident in every speech from hon. Members opposite.
The first tendency is to reduce parental responsibility for children. There is no doubt that there are examples—as has already been agreed by hon. Members opposite—in every constituency of parents who are content to have child after child supported by the Welfare State knowing full well that, within a few shillings—as the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand) pointed out—a family is as well off if the man does no work at all as if he does his full share in industry. That is a very dangerous tendency and I hope that it will be resisted.

Mr. S. Silverman: Would the hon. and gallant Member apply those strictures to all his right hon. and hon. colleagues who, at this moment, are drawing their full salaries without doing any work at all?

Sir F. Markham: The hon. Member, with his experience of the House of Commons, knows that the hardest work is done in Committee rooms, not in this Chamber.

Mr. Silverman: Committees are not in progress now.

Sir F. Markham: On the contrary, at least seven Committees are meeting upstairs now. May I point out that very few hon. Members have the love for notoriety that would cause them to take every opportunity of speaking in this Chamber, as does the hon. Member?

Notice taken than 40 Members were not present;

House counted, and 40 Members being present—

Sir F. Markham: If I may resume after that unseemly and entirely irrelevant intervention—

Mr. Silverman: On a point of order. Sir Gordon. Is it, in your opinion, correct to describe the conduct of an hon.

Member who is acting according to the Standing Orders of the House, and whose submission you have accepted, as behaving in an unseemly or irrelevant fashion?

The Deputy-Chairman: It is not very polite language, but I do not think that it is strong enough to be unparliamentary.

Sir F. Markham: I am glad, Sir Gordon, that you approve of my utterances as being within the full scope of Parliamentary precedents.
I go on to what I regard as the second most dangerous tendency which is developing, the tendency for Her Majesty's Opposition to come forward time after time with vote-catching proposals of which they do not even bother to work out the cost beforehand. The right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East will remember that before he sat down I asked him whether he or his colleagues had worked out what the cost would be if the Amendments we are discussing were agreed to. The answer came back—an almost derisive and scornful answer—that that was left to Her Majesty's Government. This is the very negation of responsible opposition. Any Opposition which conies to this House with proposals without first working out what they would cost the taxpayer or the workman every week in contributions has no sense of responsibility.

Mr. Crossman: Perhaps the hon. and gallant Member was not in this Chamber when the Minister pointed out that our scheme would involve a very heavy increase in contributions and was almost chiding us for asking too much from contributions. Which is it to be, too much or too little? The Minister said that it was too much; does the hon. and gallant Member say that it is too little?

Sir F. Markham: I am trying to get a definite statement from the Opposition of what the Amendments we are discussing would cost the nation. If the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) can tell me that, I will give way.

Mr. Marquand: Will the hon. and gallant Member tell us how he would get this information except by asking the Government for it?

Sir F. Markham: I suggest that it should have been done before these Amendments were put on the Notice Paper. I say that the Opposition have shown a lack of responsibility, a lack of responsibility which must be noted throughout the country. This sort of thing is bringing down the standard of Parliamentary debate. I suggest these Amendments should be opposed with all the strength we have because they would take away parental responsibility and would eventually result, if they and similar ones were carried, in the Welfare State becoming a bankrupt State.

Mrs. Harriet Slater: I am quite sure that when the hon. and gallant Member for Buckingham (Sir F. Markham) reads his speech tomorrow he will feel rather ashamed of it.

Mr. Percy Wells: He cannot read.

Mrs. Slater: At least, we hope the hon. and gallant Member will be ashamed of it. To say that this Amendment represents irresponsible opposition is sheer nonsense. The hon. and gallant Member knows quite well that the Government have access to information to which the Opposition have not access. We are discussing a Bill which was brought before us only a few days ago, and in that time it would have been very difficult to obtain the necessary information.
Next, if the hon. Member assumes that women have children merely so that they may draw a larger amount of benefit, then he very much under-rates the common sense of women and their desire to give their children a decent home and decent conditions in which they can be reared.

Sir F. Markham: I never suggested that.

Mrs. Slater: The hon. and gallant Member suggested that Amendments such as this would encourage women to have child after child—that was the phrase he used—so that there might be coming into the home almost as much money as a man would earn who had a very low income. If hon. Members opposite have that point of view, let them work for twelve months for such a low income.
The hon. Member also suggested that such Amendments as this encouraged

parental irresponsibility. That is the sort of red herring which the Government would like to draw across the minds of the public. It is the same sort of red herring and nonsense which they use when they say that there is no need to build council houses because the tenants will keep coal in the bathrooms. It is the same kind of irresponsible statement
I represent working-class people and I have lived amongst them since I was born. I can tell the Committee that the number of parents who are irresponsible in that way may be one in many thousands. It is not the kind of thing which happens generally. Working-class mothers and fathers are anxious to give their children the best possible conditions in which they can be fed and reared.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand), in moving the Amendment, referred to the Food Survey and said that the average amount spent on food per person per week was 28s. 6d. What he ought to have said is that the same Food Survey shows the great difference between the amount spent on food by those in the higher-income groups and the amount spent on food by those in the lower-income groups—the type of people we have been discussing, such as the old-age pensioners, the sick and the disabled. I have not the figures here, but about 55s. per week per person is spent in the higher-income groups and well under 20s. per week per person by those with very much smaller incomes, whom we are discussing today.
Many people do not know what it is like to rear a child on the amount of money which we are suggesting in the Bill and in our Amendment, and I am surprised that those who have never known this problem should have the audacity to suggest that 20s. a week is far too much to give to a family in order to rear a child. It is all very well to speak of the family allowances. They are given to everybody. We are concerned here with children who are in homes where there is sickness or disability or unemployment through no fault of the parent.
My right hon. Friend pointed out that children's shoes wear out very quickly and that because of the high cost of living it costs almost as much to buy a child's


pair of shoes as to buy an adult's pair of shoes. We also know that free meals for children are available in such homes as these. Some local authorities have schemes whereby clothes or shoes may be provided through grants. Nevertheless, just as the majority of old-age pensioners are proud, so the mothers of families like these are proud, and they do not like to go to the local authority begging for a pair of shoes or for some underwear for their children.
In this generation, when we pay so much lip-service to our desire to see that every child, at least in this country, has a decent standard of living and a fair opportunity, we ought to have a measuring stick by which we put that into operation. I say definitely that 20s. a week is by no means too much to see that a child is well fed and decently clothed.
I want to refer, next, to children living in homes where there is likely to be a long period of sickness or a long period of disability due to an industrial injury. Because their parents have so little money coming into the home, such children no; only run the risk of not being fed properly and of not having adequate clothing in which to go to school but also run the risk of missing the one opportunity which they have in their lives of a better education.
May I refer to a case of a parent who has been a hard-working man all his life and who has a brilliant son? That boy managed, under very great difficulties, to go to the grammar school. Nearly all the time he was at the grammar school his father was ill at home. Had it not been that in our local authority we took every possible opportunity to see that help was given to that boy, both in adequate maintenance grants within the recommendation and the approval of the Ministry of Education and also through trusts and other ways, that boy could not possibly have stayed at the grammar school until he had obtained the Higher School Certificate.
This year he was offered a place in one of our universities, to take science. Because his father was likely to be ill for quite a long time, he very nearly missed the chance of taking the place which he was offered in the university, partly because even today the grants which we give to boys and girls going to the university in those circumstances by no

means measure up to the amount which it costs to keep them there. This is a case where a boy has suffered almost all his school life and where he could have missed the opportunity of further education.
If we are not careful, by keeping the amounts of the child allowance in these cases at a very low figure we are adding a further worry to the parents. In sickness or disability or unemployment they have the worry from day to day of how to make ends meet and how to find the additional cost of food, rent and all the other things they need when the man is ill. When he is ill he ought to have more than the bare necessities; he ought to have some little extras. He needs a warmer house in which to live. If we are not careful, we add to those worries the humiliation which arises when we say to them, "You can put your child into a home while you are going through this difficult period, or you can go to the National Assistance Board for further help". We add to them, while they are suffering from illness, disability or unemployment, the further humiliation that they must see the standard of their children's lives slowly deteriorate.
I hope that we shall not be led away by the red herring which we have just had trailed across our path by the hon. and gallant Member for Buckingham. I also hope that hon. Members opposite who try to convince the people there that they are really concerned about the welfare of the poorest section of the community will go with us into the Lobby. We say that the children of these people should have an adequate amount—and what is proposed is by no means adequate—and a better chance of being fed and clothed and be given an equal opportunity, even though there may be sickness, disability or unemployment in their homes.

7.0 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance (Miss Edith Pitt): The purpose of this series of Amendments is to add an extra 5s. to the increases proposed in the Bill for dependency benefits for children under both the Industrial Injuries and the National Insurance Acts. I notice that they do not include anything for the widowed mother's first or only child, but no doubt that is an oversight,


because this figure is shown in the Bill itself as an inclusive one of 70s. The oversight is understandable, since this is a very complicated Bill and, as has already been said, there has not been a great deal of time in which to give it detailed study.
In reply to the arguments put forward in support of the Amendments, I want to say that the Conservative Government have certainly done very much better for dependent children than has the party opposite. The Conservative Government gave improvements in 1952 and in 1954, and gave further improvements in 1956 to the widowed mother's children. Here I must correct the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand), who very generously gave credit which was unwarranted to his right hon. Friend the Member for Warrington (Dr. Summerskill) by saying that she gave preferential terms to the widow's children.
The right hon. Lady did not. The widow's children were treated on exactly the same basis as other children throughout the years of the Socialist Government. It was left to my own party to take action in this, last year, and to give the widowed mother's children a lead over all others. Those improvements of last year—together, I may add, with improvements in family allowances for all families—have been maintained in the Bill's proposals, because the widowed mother still maintains her lead. Her benefit is 5s. ahead of others in all cases.
The improvement for the child represents a 30 per cent. increase on the first child and 100 per cent. on others if we take the benefit for the child alone, but I think that, more properly, we should take it with family allowance, in which case it represents a 30 per cent. increase for the first and second child and 26 per cent. increase for other children.
Since I have mentioned family allowances, I want to comment on what was said by the hon. Lady the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mrs. Slater). The hon. Lady said that family allowances were given to everyone. Really, from her speech, I gathered that she did not attach much weight to them as part of dependency benefits. The hon. Member for Itchen (Dr. King) made a point which

surprised me, because I thought that it was not quite a scrupulous one. He asked: who could keep a child on 7s.? I intervened to ask whether he had not forgotten family allowances, and he replied that everyone got that, implying that families in receipt of National Insurance or Industrial Injuries benefit had only the amount allocated in these benefits to the second, third and subsequent children. Does he not feel that family allowances should be regarded as part of the income of the family receiving National Insurance benefit?

Dr. King: The hon. Lady must read what I said. I was working out the amount we were giving to a widowed mother with an unemployed child, and the hon. Lady interrupted me and brought in family allowances. I pointed out that every child in the country—the child even of the richest man in the country except, of course, that he pays Income Tax on that money—is getting family allowance. That, therefore, has nothing to do with what we are arguing about.

Miss Pitt: It must be taken into account. It is part of the income of the family. It is quite true that every family gets it, but, when assessing what is needed to maintain a family, surely this is income. It is family allowance. In fact, the hon. Gentleman's own party must have had that very much in mind when the 1946 Act was put into operation, because the Socialist Government gave no individual benefit for the second, third and subsequent children. They gave it only for the first child and the dependency benefit for the remainder of the children was nil. The 1951 Act gave an increase for the remainder of 2s. 6d., and increases were subsequently given in 1952 and 1954, as I have already detailed.
The increase given under the Bill for dependent children under both the Industrial Injuries and the National Insurance Acts represents, as I said earlier, a 30 per cent. increase for the first and second child and a 26 per cent. increase for the other children. This compares with a 25 per cent. increase for personal beneficiaries under the Bill, and 20 per cent. for adult dependants. I say this to emphasise that we have done rather better for the dependent children than we have for other beneficiaries.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Middlesbrough, East contrasted the


difference between wages when a man was at work and National Insurance benefit when he had to fall back on this. In 1948, a married man with three children received, through benefit and family allowance, £2 19s. 6d. to maintain his family. That was about 44 per cent. of the average earnings of the adult male. By this Bill he will receive £6 7s. weekly, which represents about 51 per cent. of the estimated average earnings of the adult male. Therefore, if one uses that comparison, he is enjoying a better proportion as compared with average earnings. These are substantial benefits.
The right hon. Gentleman returned to a point that I have heard him make many times before, about the difference between National Assistance benefits for children and those received under the National Insurance Scheme. Today he said, as he has on previous occasions, that the only way really to care for these children was to put the benefits of National Insurance above National Assistance. I am happy to assure him that we have taken a pretty good step in that direction, because the proposed increases under the Bill mean that National Insurance—or National Insurance plus family allowances, as I think it should properly be described—brings the benefit for the young child above National Assistance, and even for the older child it is not far behind.
As the right hon. Gentleman looks a little puzzled I shall try to make it clear by giving an example. The family with three children aged two, four and six years will receive 47s. in Insurance benefit and family allowance—1s. more than National Assistance. If the children are older—four, six and ten years—the total is just below the Assistance payment. Even when the children are aged eight, ten and fifteen, the total payment is within 7s. of Assistance payment.
The right hon. Gentleman also stressed, as did the hon. Lady the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North, his concern for the older child who was, perhaps, denied the opportunities of further education because the family had to maintain itself on National Insurance benefits. I want to emphasise that educational opportunities are available to these children. I appreciate the difficulties—I have experienced them.
The position today is that maintenance grants can be paid by local education

authorities, as the hon. Lady said. As I understand, regulations made under the 1944 Education Act enable local education authorities to pay maintenance grants for pupils over compulsory school-leaving age attending a school or place of further education.
The purpose, of course, is to ensure that the parents—especially those in the lower income ranges—are not involved, as a result of keeping a child at school beyond normal school-leaving age, in any expense that they cannot reasonably be expected to meet, and which might, without some help being given, lead to the child's premature withdrawal from school. These allowances are ignored by the National Assistance Board in assessing family income for their purposes, and again I am informed that the present maximum grants which the Minister of Education approves for this purpose are £40, £55 and £65 a year for pupils aged 15, 16 and 17 respectively.

Dr. King: Since the hon. Lady has referred to the Minister of Education, is she aware he has turned down the proposal of his working party to raise those allowances to an adequate level?

Miss Pitt: I was not aware of that. I am very surprised, because I have obtained these figures from the Minister of Education. Is the hon. Gentleman asserting that these figures are incorrect?

Dr. King: No. The Minister, in providing the allowances at the levels which the hon. Lady has given, as the Minister will tell her, has turned down the recommendation of the working party which was advising him and which would have given much more.

Miss Pitt: The figures which I have quoted are the correct ones. The point that the hon. Gentleman raises is not one for me, but I am advised that these figures are higher than they have ever been before. I am advised that the grants are payable where the income of the family with one child does not exceed £300 a year or with two children £350 a year and so on.
I want to make a reservation and this will perhaps concern hon. Members opposite. Some local education authorities may not pay up to the maximum—

Mr. Crossman: They do not.

Miss Pitt: —in which case I would suggest that it is a matter for bringing pressure to bear on the local education authorities.
There is another point that I should like to make. Guardians allowance does not figure amongst the proposed increases in the Amendment, but it is worth taking a moment of our time on this matter because the Bill proposes an increase from 18s. to 27s. 6d. in this allowance, which is a 53 per cent. increase. I think that is very generous and worth doing. Guardians allowance is paid to encourage the inclusion of orphaned children into family life.
When the right hon. Gentleman says, as he did, that if 27s. 6d. were right for the guardians allowance it should be higher for other children in comparison—I do not mean higher than 27s. 6d., I mean that the National Insurance benefit should be higher in comparison with guardians allowance—I think he realises as well as I do that the orphaned child is not necessarily taken into a family home. It is not the natural home, as is the case with other beneficiaries under National Insurance. There is sometimes a relative—sometimes a remote relative.
But this is a child taken into care, as it were, and although I am not suggesting that a guardian makes a profit on 27s. 6d. a week, I think that to give the child a proper background and a real home, and not a substitute home provided by the local authority, this very generous payment is warranted. I am very glad that we are increasing it, because last year, when the widowed mother got a special increase, no increase was given to guardians. I am, therefore, very glad that we are giving the present generous increase.
I now want to deal with the widowed mother, because there has been a fair amount of discussion about her. The greatest amount of sympathy is extended to the widow who has to act in a dual capacity for her children. We did grant an increase, which I have already mentioned, under the 1956 Act which came into operation in October, and it was then widely accepted that the new rate of 16s. 6d. for her children nearly reached the subsistence payment. Under this Bill she maintains the lead and gets the same improvement as the other beneficiaries. This brings the payment to 20s. for the

first and second children and 22s. for her other children.
When the comparison with National Assistance scales is made for the widowed mother's child, of course it is more favourable, because of the lead that the widowed mother enjoys. In fact, National Insurance and family allowances are higher than National Assistance if the child is under 11, and equal if the child is between 11 and 16; and only below National Assistance scales if the child is over 16; and then, of course, if the child is continuing in education, maintenance grants should be available.
The right hon. Gentleman returned to a point that he made on Second Reading about the number of widows on National Assistance. He said at the time of the Second Reading that in March, 1955, 94,000 widows were obliged to draw National Assistance and that in June, 1957, there were still 64,000. He felt that the latter must include for the most part widows with large families.
I can give a little more up-to-date information which shows that we must be making progress in providing for the widowed mother and her family, because the figures that the right hon. Gentleman quoted are for all widows, including the 10s. widows. When we break it down, of that March, 1955, total of 94,000, the widowed mothers at that date represent 36,000. The latest date for which I have a complete breakdown is November, 1956, when the total number of widows on National Assistance was 70,000, and of that, widowed mothers were only 27,000; so the number had been considerably reduced.
I believe that the National Assistance payments to widows have gone down still further, and no doubt part of that applies to the widowed mothers, but I cannot give the complete breakdown later than November, 1956. I hope that removes some of the concern lest widowed mothers have to turn to National Assistance.

Mr. Marquand: Does the hon. Lady expect the number to go up now that National Assistance scales have been increased?

Miss Pitt: The National Insurance scales are being increased, too, and I would expect to find that there would be fewer widowed mothers needing to claim National Assistance.
I was asked by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Buckingham (Sir F. Markham)—and there was a slight altercation following it—what the proposals would cost. The answer is £8½ million, which is split up as to £8 million on National Insurance and about £500,000 on industrial injuries. But what it would cost is not the real answer, though it is not for that reason that I advise the Committee not to accept this Amendment. The real answer is that the present Government have been consistent in upgrading benefits for children and especially the widows' children. These benefits are much more adequate now to meet family responsibilities than at any time since the National Insurance Act came into operation in 1948, and by comparison with that date we certainly have a much better record.
7.15 p.m.
Once this Bill becomes law, the rate for the National Insurance beneficiary's first child will be twice as much as was granted by the party opposite in 1948. For the second child it will be three times as much and for the third and other children it will be three-and-a-half times as much. For the widow's first child we shall give two-and-a-half times as much as hon. Members opposite did in 1948. For the second child we shall be giving four limes as much, and for the third and other children nearly four-and-a-half times as much.
If, as hon. Members may say, I ought to talk about the purchasing power of these benefits, then in real terms the National Insurance and Industrial Injuries benefits, including family allowances, represent an increase over 1948 for the first child of 33 per cent.; for the second child, 99 per cent., and for the third and others 126 per cent.; or for the widowed mother the increase over 1948 for the first child is 77 per cent.; for the second child 165 per cent.; and for the third child and others 192 per cent. I submit that that is a good record in caring for the children of the beneficiaries under National Insurance, and it is on that record that I resist the Amendment.

Miss Margaret Herbison: It seems to me clear, now that we are approaching the end of the third day's debate on the Committee stage and the Third Reading of the Bill, that we have had evidence time and time again that the Minister, his Joint Parliamentary

Secretaries and, indeed, anyone who has had anything to do with the provisions of the Bill, is completely devoid of ability to examine any of the questions on their merits. Each time that we have had a reply to an Amendment, it has not been a reply on the merits of the Amendment, but a clash on whether the Government have been doing better than previous Labour Governments. Never at any time have we had an answer on the merits of the provision that we have asked for in an Amendment.
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary gave no reply at all to the hon. and gallant Member for Buckingham (Sir F. Markham). It seems to me that she was very careful not to say that she either agreed or disagreed with the hon. Member. All that has been said on the Bill by the Government has shown clearly that the Ministers and the Government are in complete agreement with the parsimonious old Tory attitude which the hon. and gallant Member for Buckingham showed in his speech today.
He spoke about parental irresponsibility—that the people for whom we were talking were quite willing to rest on the Welfare State, and that if they could get sufficient money they would not work. I remember that in my very young days, when there were millions of unemployed, the same Tory argument was used—that most of the unemployed did not want to work at all—yet when work was provided we found that the people were more than willing to take it. That is one of the answers which I would give, and I am very sorry that the hon. Member was not in his place to listen to the answer given by the Minister.
The hon. and gallant Member spoke about the cost of the proposals in the Amendment, and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, in her few final sentences, said that they would cost £8½ million; but that the cost, of course, was not worrying them. If the cost is not worrying the Government, and that was not the real reason for turning down this Amendment, the real reason for turning it down must be that the Government consider that the figures which are contained in the Bill are sufficient to give these people a decent standard of living. It is on that point that we on this side definitely part company with the Government.
The Minister said that these increases were rather better for the dependent beneficiaries than for others. Our complaint on Second Reading and in the last two and a half days has been that the increases for the others have been meagre and mean. It is no comfort to us that these are a little better in proportion, because they are not sufficiently good. Then the Minister, in her reply, tried to deal with the point made about the lack of educational opportunities for these children by telling us of the maintenance grants that could be given.
My hon. Friend the Member for Itchen (Dr. King), who intervened, was perfectly correct. We discussed this question in the Scottish Grand Committee. The Government themselves set up a committee to find what means ought to be taken to keep at school a greater number of children who have the ability to benefit from secondary education. They did that because of the need for more scientists and more technicians. That committee, set up by this Government, submitted a report, and one of the main attractions which the committee felt would keep children at school would be to give much increased maintenance grants.
The Minister who was present said that the Government had increased them to the highest level ever. We have heard that very often during the discussions on this Bill. If we put even a penny on any previous amount, we have made it the highest ever. The figures that were decided upon by the Minister of Education and by the Secretary of State for Scotland were very much lower than those that were stated by that expert committee.
We are dealing with the maintenance grants given to the children of the sick, particularly the children of the chronic sick; but even if we gave them the increase

that was recommended by the expert committee, many of them would still have to leave school because their mothers and fathers would need the money that they could earn. That is an important point to remember.

The only way that we can help them is by giving the increases and maintenance grants that we suggest and by the Government acceding to the series of Amendments that we are considering. I would say to the hon. Lady and to the hon. and gallant Member for Buckingham that all we are asking is 20s. a week for each child, including family allowances. Can any hon. Member on the Government side go into the Division Lobby and, in soul and conscience, say that 20s. a week is too much to keep any child in this country? Of course he cannot. Everyone on the Government side who is a parent knows that 20s. a week does not represent what he spends for each child in his family. We are not asking for the high amount that every hon. Member spends on his own family. We are asking for a very modest increase of the amount in the Bill, and it seems to me that it is completely heartless of the Government to refuse it.

I would say to any hon. Member who goes into the Lobby to vote against this Amendment that he is doing great disservice to these children of the chronic sick, these children of the unemployed, these people for whom I am speaking who really need so much help. If we cannot get anything from the Government, let the Government be defeated by the decency of their own Members.

Question put, That "150/70" stand part of the Schedule:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 221, Noes 193.

Division No. 12.]
AYES
[7.30 p.m.


Agnew, Sir Peter
Bennett, Dr. Reginald
Campbell, Sir David


Aitken, W. T.
Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)
Carr, Robert


Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)
Bidgood, J. C.
Channon, Sir Henry


Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)
Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)


Amory, Rt. Hn. Heathcoat (Tiverton)
Bishop, F. P.
Conant, Maj. Sir Roger


Armstrong, C. W.
Boothby, Sir Robert
Cooke, Robert


Atkins, H. E.
Bossom, Sir Alfred
Cooper, A. E.


Baldwin, A. E.
Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.
Cooper-Key, E. M.


Balniel, Lord
Boyle, Sir Edward
Corfield, Capt. F. V.


Barber, Anthony
Braine, B. R.
Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)


Barlow, Sir John
Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.


Barter, John
Brooman-White, R. C.
Cunningham, Knox


Baxter, Sir Beverley
Burden, F. F. A.
Currie, G. B. H.


Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)
Butcher, Sir Herbert
Dance, J. C. G.


Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)
Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron Walden)
D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry




Deedes, W. F.
Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.
Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. &amp; Chr'ch)


Digby, Simon Wingfield
Hughes-Young, M. H. C.
Nugent, G. R. H.


Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.
Hurd, A. R.
Oakshott, H. D.


Doughty, C. J. A.
Hutchison, Michael Clark (E'b'gh, S.)
O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)


Drayson, G. B.
Hutchison, SirlanClark (E'b'gh, W.)
Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Weston-S-Mare)


du Cann, E. D. L.
Hutchison, Sir James (Scotstoun)
Page, R. G.


Duncan, Sir James
Hyde, Montgomery
Pannell, N. A. (Kirkdale)


Duthie, W. S.
Iremonger, T. L.
Partridge, E.


Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Pickthorn, K. W. M.


Elliot, Rt Hon. W. E. (Kelvingrove)
Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
Pike, Miss Mervyn


Elliott, R. W. (Ncastle upon Tyne, N.)
Jennings, J. C. (Burton)
Pilkington, Capt. R. A.


Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn
Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)
Pitman, I. J.


Errington, Sir Eric
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Pitt, Miss E. M.


Farey-Jones, F. W.
Joseph, Sir Keith
Pott, H. P.


Fell, A.
Joynson-Hicks, Hon, Sir Lancelot
Powell, J. Enoch


Finlay, Graeme
Kaberry, D.
Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)


Fisher, Nigel
Keegan, D.
Prior-palmer, Brig. O. L.


Fort, R.
Kerby, Capt. H. B.
Rawlinson, Peter


Foster, John
Kershaw, J. A.
Redmayne, M.


Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)
Kimball, M.
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Fraser, Sir Ian (M'cmbe &amp; Lonsdale)
Kirk, P. M.
Ridsdale, J. E.


Freeth, Denzil
Lagden, G. W.
Robson Brown, Sir William


Gammans, Lady
Lambton, Viscount
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)


Garner-Evans, E. H.
Langford-Holt, J. A.
Roper, Sir Harold


Glyn, Col. Richard H.
Leavey, J. A.
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard


Godber, J. B.
Leburn, W. G.
Russell, R. S.


Gomme-Duncan, Col. Sir Alan
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.


Goodhart, Philip
Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)
Sharpies, R. C.


Gough, C. F. H.
Lindsay, Hon, James (Devon, N.)
Shepherd, William


Gower, H. R.
Lindsay, Martin (Solihull)
Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)


Graham, Sir Fergus
Linstead, Sir H. N.
Smyth, Brig. Sir john (Norwood)


Gram, W. (Woodside)
Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Spearman, Sir Alexander


Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich)
Low, Rt. Hon. Sir Toby
Speir, R. M.


Green, A.
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)


Gresham Cooke, R.
McAdden, S. J.
Steward, Sir William (Woolwich, W.)


Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.
Macdonald, Sir Peter
Storey, S.


Gurden, Harold
Mackeson, Brig. Sir Harry
Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)


Hall, John (Wycombe)
Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)
Studholme, Sir Henry


Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)
McLaughlin, Mrs. P.
Summers, Sir Spencer


Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon)
McLean, Neil (Inverness)
Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington)


Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)
MacLeod, John (Ross &amp; Cromarty)
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


Harvey, Sir Arthur (Macclesfd)
Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)


Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)
Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)
Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)


Hay, John
Maddan, Martin
Thomas, P. J. M. (Conway)


Heald, Rt. Hon, Sir Lionel
Maitland, Cdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)
Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, S.)


Heath, Rt. Hon. E. R. G.
Maitland, Hon. Patrick (Lanark)
Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.)


Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Markham, Major Sir Frank
Tilney, John (Wavertree)


Henderson-Stewart, Sir James
Marshall, Douglas
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.


Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.
Mathew, R.
Vickers, Miss Joan


Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)
Maude, Angus
Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)


Hill, John (S. Norfolk)
Maudling, Rt. Hon. R.
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Derek


Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Mawby, R. L.
Wall, Major Patrick


Hirst, Geoffrey
Maydon, Lt.-Comdr, S. L. C.
Whitelaw, W. S. I.


Holland-Martin, C. J.
Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Hornby, R. P.
Molson, Rt. Hon. Hugh
Wood, Hon, R.


Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.
Morrison, John (Salisbury)
Woollam, John Victor


Horobin, Sir Ian
Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles



Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Dame Florence
Nabarro, G. D. N.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)
Nairn, D. L. S.
Mr. Bryan and Mr. Gibson-Watt.


Howard, John (Test)
Neave, Airey





NOES


Ainsley, J. W.
Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Delargy, H. J.


Albu, A. H.
Burke, W. A.
Diamond, John


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Dodds, N. N.


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Dugdale, Rt. Hn. John (W. Brmwch)


Awbery, S. S.
Callaghan, L. J.
Edelman, M.


Bacon, Miss Alice
Clunie, J.
Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)


Baird, J.
Coldrick, W.
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)


Balfour, A.
Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead)
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)


Beswick, Frank
Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)


Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)
Cove, W. G.
Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)


Blackburn, F.
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)


Blenkinsop, A.
Cronin, J. D.
Finch, H. J.


Blyton, W. R.
Crossman, R. H. S.
Fletcher, Eric


Boardman, H.
Cullen, Mrs. A.
Foot, D. M.


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)


Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S.W.)
Darling, George (Hillsborough)
Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.


Bowen, E. R. (Cardigan)
Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)
George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Car'then)


Bowles, F. G.
Davies, Harold (Leek)
Gibson, C. W.


Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth
Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)
Gooch, E. G.


Brockway, A. F.
Deer, G.
Greenwood, Anthony







Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Royle, C.


Grey, C. F.
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)


Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Mann, Mrs. Jean
Skeffington, A. M.


Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.
Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke, N.)


Griffiths, William (Exchange)
Mason, Roy
Slater, J. (Sedgefield)


Grimond, J.
Mellish, R. J.
Snow, J. W.


Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Coins Valley)
Messer, Sir F.
Sparks, J. A.


Hamilton, W. W.
Mikardo, Ian
Steele, T.


Hannan, W.
Mitchison, G. R.
Stewart, Michael (Fulham)


Hastings, S.
Monslow, W.
Stones, W. (Consett)


Hayman, F. H.
Moody, A. S.
Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.


Herbison, Miss M.
Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)
Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)


Hewitson, Capt. M.
Mort, D. L.
Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.


Holmes, Horace
Moss, R.
Swingler, S. T.


Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)
Moyle, A.
Sylvester, G. O.


Howell, Denis (All Saints)
Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Hoy, J. H.
O'Brien, Sir Thomas
Taylor, John (West Lothian)


Hubbard, T. F.
Oliver, G. H.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)


Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Orbach, M.
Thornton, E.


Hunter, A. E.
Oswald, T.
Timmons, J.


Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Owen, W. J.
Tomney, F.


Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn


Janner, B.
Palmer, A. M. F.
Usborne, H. C.


Jeger, Mrs. Lena (Holbn &amp; St. Pncs, S.)
Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)
Viant, S. P.


Johnson, James (Rugby)
Pargiter, G. A.
Watkins, T. E.


Jones, Rt. Hon. A. Creech (Wakefield)
Parker, J.
Weitzman, D.


Jones, David (The Hartlepools)
Parkin, B. T.
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Jones, Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)
Paton, John
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


Jones, Jack (Rotherham)
Pearson, A.
Wheeldon, W. E.


Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Peart, T. F.
White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)


Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)
Pentland, N.
Wigg, George


Kenyon, C.
Popplewell, E.
Willey, Frederick


Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Prentice, R. E.
Williams, David (Neath)


King, Dr. H. M.
Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)
Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Ab'tillery)


Lawson, G. M.
Probert, A. R.
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)


Ledger, R. J.
Proctor, W. T.
Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)


Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Pryde, D. J.
Willis, Eustace (Edinburgh, E.)


Lever, Harold (Cheetham)
Randall, H. E.
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Lipton, Marcus
Redhead, E. C.
Winterbottom, Richard


Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Reeves, J.
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


MacColl, J. E.
Reid, William
Woof, R. E.


McInnes, J.
Roberts, Rt. Hon. A.
Yates, V. (Ladywood)


McKay, John (Wallsend)
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Zilliacus, K.


McLeavy, Frank
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)



MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)
Ross, William
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:




Mr. J. T. Price and Mr. Short.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Schedule be the Fourth Schedule to the Bill.

Mr. Crossman: Before the Schedule is finally disposed of, we should turn back from the least unattractive side of it, which was—I agree with the hon. Lady—the children's concessions, and consider it as a whole. After all, the Schedule does not consist only of the children's concessions; it contains all the benefits. I wish to refer once again to the 10s. increase in pension and the question whether or not the Committee should make up its mind that 10s. is an adequate increase to make in this year of grace.
On this side of the Committee, we make no disguise of this, that we think that the minimum—I stress the minimum—which we could reasonably and decently give in 1957 is £1 increase in the basic rate. On an earlier Amendment, we made it clear that we were not content merely to claim that there should be a £1 increase. We believe also that the £3

pension which would then be created should be guaranteed against inflation. We spent a long time trying to write a guarantee against inflation into the Bill. We were unsuccessful, but I think it right, in discussing this Schedule, to repeat the view of those on this side of the Committee that there will never be adequate justice for the old-age pensioner unless a guarantee is written into the Bill by Parliament automatically to increase the pension if the cost of living rises. I will not deny that such a guarantee, in its way, is an inflationary measure. Nonetheless, it happens to be one of those inflationary measures which, in common decency, one must take in order to protect from its effects those who do not cause inflation.
The Minister said, quite rightly, that these things cost a lot. We on this side make no disguise of the fact that, in our view, the kind of basic pension for existing pensioners, including proof against inflation, which we call for is something one cannot pay for satisfactorily with the National Insurance system as we know


it at present. I will come later to how we intend to do it in the short run, but we agree fiat, in the long run, there will never be a decent pension for existing or future pensioners or a proper guarantee against inflation as long as we continue to tinker with the present system. This is why we point out that a genuine and decent improvement of the existing pension rates is impossible until we have a Government prepared to make a fundamental change. We have indicated the lines on which that change must come about, and the key to the change, in our view, is to change to graduated contributions and benefits from flat rate contributions and benefits.
The Minister was perfectly fair—and I accept it straight away—when he said that it would be quite illogical for any Member of the Labour Party who supports our scheme for national superannuation to be in principle opposed to increase contributions for National Insurance. Clearly we are in favour of increased contributions. This is no disguise and we make it perfectly clear. In our propaganda we have warned the workers that the pensions have to be paid for largely out of increased contributions. The difference between the Government and this side of the Committee is that we realise that it is impossible to increase the contribution unless we substitute a graded contribution for the flat rate contribution. I believe that there must be a great number of hon. Gentlemen opposite who secretly agree with us that an increase of 2s. on the fiat-rate contribution necessary to pay for this miserable increase is the reductio ad absurdum of the present position. An increase which weighs three times as heavily on the agricultural worker receiving £8 a week as it does on the £20 a week worker who receives exactly the same benefit is intolerable, and we will not be able to raise the contributions adequately until—

The Deputy-Chairman: I am riot sure how the hon. Member is relating his argument to the Fourth Schedule.

Mr. Crossman: Because the Minister has been telling us that our suggested improvements to the Schedule of benefits are impossible without a change in contribution. I was agreeing with him. If we want better benefits than are in the Schedule, we cannot possibly achieve that

within the existing system. I think the Minister knows perfectly well what the point of the argument is.
I would point out to the Minister a further point that is wrong with his present scale of benefits, namely, that the benefits are flat-rate benefits. One of the most human beliefs is that one should impose a flat-rate equality on old people when they retire although we have extreme or very large degrees of inequalities in earnings so long as one is earning wages. What should be the purpose of an old-age pension? Surely the pension is to reduce the gap to as narrow a degree as possible between the standard of living when one is old and the standard of living when one is earning.
The appalling situation which we have under this Schedule—and I think the Minister will agree—is that there will be roughly a 65 per cent. drop in the standard of living of the average wage earner when he ceases to earn his living and retires. To face the citizens of this country with a 65 per cent. drop in their standard of living the moment they cease earning is to make old age a nightmare. We shall be able to get away from what I call flat-rate poverty only if we are prepared to have graduated benefits related to graduated contributions. This is the reason why we denounce the Schedule. We hope that this will be the last Schedule dealing with the bad old style of flat-rate benefits and flat-rate contributions.
I would not necessarily apply the doctrine which we are applying to old-age pensioners to sickness and unemployment benefit. I think that there is an arguable case for saying that, whereas we should change our old-age pensions to graduated pensions and benefits, it is desirable to keep our sickness and unemployment benefit on a flat-rate level. It may be necessary to change it, but it does not necessarily follow that we should change it in old age. Sickness and unemployment are conditions which one hopes will not last very long and will not be permanent, and, possibly, a flat-rate insurance is justifiable. Old age is something against which we cannot insure by a flat-rate pension. It will not be something impermanent and something which is an interruption of life. It is a permanent state of life and there must be permanent conditions laid down which we believe


must be wage-related. We do not object in principle to the flat-rate pension as applied to sickness and unemployment.
7.45 p.m.
May I now come to my last point. I realise that regarding these criticisms we are making of the benefits under the Schedule there is always the problem as to how we would carry out the proposals we make. It has been put to our Front Bench several times: "We cannot introduce national superannuation overnight. Old age people require benefits straight away. What should we do?" I believe that there is no question that in an emergency—and the condition of the old folk is an emergency—one must pay the increased benefits one thinks necessary out of the taxpayers' money until one has carried through one's great reform. One could not possibly ask the old people to wait until the Bill effecting the great reform had been completed.
In the short term, I believe that the Exchequer would have to make up the difference, or get the Bill through as fast as possible to relieve the Exchequer of a strain and put it where it should be—on the contributors to the scheme. One cannot deny the old people the right of the standard of living to which they are entitled. This is what makes some of us on this side resent so much the shape and structure of the Bill and the Schedule. The Minister has done exactly the opposite. Instead of making the Excheqeur pay for these benefits, his whole purpose has been to shift the burden of payment from the Exchequer to the flat-rate contribution.
I do not want to go into a great many figures, but there is one remarkable figure. When we look at the total National Insurance contribution payable we see that it has increased by about 89 per cent. from 55s. to 105s. If we take the share of the benefit which is to be paid to the old-age pensioner, that has increased from 1s. 7½d. to 4s. 5d. since 1946. Over the last ten years the amount of the National Insurance contribution being spent on the old-age pension has steadily gone up, although, of course, the value of the pension has not gone up. The value of the pension has just been maintained at the 1946 level, or perhaps at a little above it. The contribution has steadily risen while the value

of the pension has remained relatively stable in terms of real purchasing power.
The only thing which has not gone up proportionately is the Exchequer contribution. In those ten years the Exchequer contribution has increased from 2s. to 2s. 5d.—an increase of 17 per cent. When we see the Exchequer contribution increasing by only 17 per cent., when we see the total National Insurance contribution increasing by 89 per cent. and when the fraction of the National Insurance contribution allocated to old-age pensions increases by 171 per cent., we see a deliberate policy of holding the pension down by shifting the burden on to the contributor, so that he says that he cannot afford to pay any more.
A simple device by which to keep old-age pensions down to is to keep a flat-rate contribution and insist upon paying the pensions out of that flat-rate contribution. If the Government insist upon paying them out of a flat-rate contribution, the pensions will be related to the lowest wage in the country. They can only be the pension which the lowest wage earner can afford to pay for out of his contribution and that means that they are flat-rate poverty pensions as defined by the Minister himself. They must be poverty pensions, otherwise they would not be capable of being paid for by the contribution of an £8 a week worker.
That is what we object to most of all in the Bill, apart from the meanness of its benefits. Not only is it mean in its benefits in the sense that it does not give enough—and we have argued that ad infinitum earlier. Any Bill which gives only 2s. 4d. a week to about half the people on National Assistance cannot be said to be a very generous measure for 1957. But to do that and to finance it by shifting the burden on to the flat-rate contribution, which weighs heaviest on the lowest-paid worker—

The Deputy-Chairman: I am afraid that the hon. Member is not on the Fourth Schedule.

Mr. Crossman: We have got to pay for the Fourth Schedule, Sir Gordon.

The Deputy-Chairman: The Exchequer contribution is dealt with in another Schedule.

Mr. Crossman: I am grateful for the latitude you have given me, Sir Gordon. I am willing to deal with benefits instead. They are even more unseemly than the contribution. I am amazed that anybody on the Government side would want anything more to be said about these benefits. After all, we have not had any reply whatever to the points that we have already made on this subject.
We had from the Minister a statement that the Manchester Guardian claimed that there was a real increase in purchasing power compared with 1946. When I asked him what, on his own statistician's calculations, was the amount that we should reckon for rent increase during the next twelve months—obviously, anybody who is calculating the genuine purchasing power of a pension must have a figure in mind for the amount of increased rent that people will have to pay under the Rent Act—the right hon. Gentleman did not answer. I said to him that it would be useful if we could have the figure broken down by percentages and I asked on what calculations concerning rent the benefits were based. We had no answer at all. It would be extremely interesting to know whether it was 2s., 3s. or 4s. which is calculated as the extra rent which people will have to pay and which must be paid out of their increased pensions. Until we know that figure, we cannot know how generous the Minister has been by his own calculations.
All we know is that by the calculations of The Times, which is not, after all, a wildly Bolshevik paper or on our side, the pensioner who smokes is exactly 8d. better off than he was in 1946. If The Times is wrong, the Minister must tell us why it is wrong. He can give us his own figures and his own calculations on living costs in 1958, because, presumably, he is calculating his benefit in order to keep it adequate for a couple of years. I presume that he hopes that this Bill will last about as long as the last Act lasted until inflation catches up again.
What were the figures on which the Minister calculated in assessing the purchasing power of the pension? I believe that he knew perfectly well what he was doing and that he was, in fact, restoring the 1946 purchasing power, his great claim being not to have worsened the

position, or to have done 8d. better or, perhaps, 1s. 2d. better on a different calculation of rent. That is the scheme or scale of improvement which the Minister has included in the Schedule. That is the amount that it is really worth to the ordinary person, provided that the inflation does not go too fast.
It is for those reasons that we on this side must regard the Schedule as totally inadequate and repeat our ardent belief that this is the last time that a Schedule of this sort will be produced and that the next Schedule to be produced in the House of Commons will be one with graded benefits and graded contributions and which will for ever abolish poverty in old age.

Mr. James Griffiths: We have had a powerful plea from my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) and there is nothing that I wish to add to what he has said. I hope that the Minister will deal with the points raised by my hon. Friend. I intervene only because we are dealing with a Schedule which provides the benefits and I wish to refer to a class which gets very little attention in the detailed discussions on National Insurance.
In 1945 and 1946 I was privileged to pilot through the House two Bills, one dealing with industrial injuries and one dealing with National Insurance. One dealt with disablement arising from accident or disease contracted whilst at work and the other made provision for sickness unconnected with work. I had made a private note that if I was permitted to be the Minister when the time came for the quinquennial review, there were certain changes which I should like to consider in sickness benefit based on the principles already established in the Industrial Injuries Act. My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. B. Taylor), whom I have described in the House as a very good buddy, as he still is, will remember how we used to talk of these things.
I do not know the present figures and I do not have the Minister's report before me. We made some fundamental changes in the provisions governing sickness benefit. Under the old National Insurance Act, there was a standard benefit for the first six months of the illness, after which it fell to a very low amount—speaking from memory, 10s. 6d. a week.


In other words, it was subsequently called disablement benefit of 10s. 6d. a week. In those days, sickness benefit was administered through the approved societies, some of whom were able to supplement the disablement benefit, depending upon their range of membership and the occupations and professions covered by the various approved societies.
We made sickness benefit of a uniform standard and subject to certain insurance conditions we made it continuous throughout the whole of the sickness, without the old anomaly—indeed, the stupidity—of reducing it to a bare minimum of 10s. 6d. at the very time when the need was becoming greatest after a man had been out of work because of sickness for six months.
In the Industrial Injuries Act, we recognised that there were two kinds of disability arising from disablement from injuries and from industrial disease for which we had not catered. First there was the injuries benefit for a period of six months and then there was the disablement benefit based upon the assessment of the injury, to which could be added certain other benefits.
First, we wove the benefits of National insurance and industrial injuries together so that they could be paid together. A man could therefore get disablement benefit and sickness benefit, or he could get disablement benefit and an unemployability allowance or a constant attendance allowance. The Minister has told us that the Bill includes provision for increasing these amounts.
What I have always felt is that particularly if we are to retain the flat rate benefit in the field of sickness benefit, we ought sometime to consider whether we should not apply these provisions of the Industrial Injuries Act concerning long-term disablement in the same way for sickness under the National Insurance Act.
When people have been ill for some time and it is known that they will not recover, why should we not make them an unemployability allowance, recognising that they will be ill for the rest of their lives, and add to the basic sickness benefit a similar provision as in the case of industrial injuries and recognise that the disability is of such a character that it will mean that for the rest of their

lives—or at least for long periods—those to whom it is paid will not be able to earn their livelihood?
8.0 p.m.
We should recognise, therefore, that the longer sickness lasts the greater the need for assistance. The longer sickness lasts the more are the savings of the family of the sick person diminished. They may even be exhausted. The consequence is that practically all—indeed, I think I may truly say all—the long-term sick are now dependent upon National Assistance.
I had hoped that when we reviewed the Act we should find it possible to make provision to add to the standard sickness benefit for long-term sickness—by a hardship allowance, or some such allowance, by whatever name hon. Members may like to call it. We must recognise that after the standard period of six months there ought to be added another benefit.
We in our party are, as my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East said, now considering all these matters, and I make the suggestion for consideration by all of us that there is the strongest possible case for the payment of constant attendance allowance related to long-term sickness benefit. We make a constant attendance allowance under the Industrial Injuries Act. We know the burden which is cast upon a man's wife and family if he is sick for a very long time. He has to be cared for; someone has to be with him all the time. When someone is permanently sick a tremendous burden is cast upon his household. I hope that at some time a Minister of Pensions and National Insurance will return to the problem which I considered and will make some provision for the long-term sick.
One of the difficulties in trying to provide for the long-term sick is, I say frankly, that they are not a powerful pressure group. Indeed, very few of us hear about them, but they are indeed amongst those who suffer the greatest hardship. They have to depend upon the standard sickness benefit which does not increase though their needs grow ever greater and their resources are soon diminished. I hope the time will come when we shall add to their benefit because they represent, among all those who depend upon the provisions of the National


Insurance Act, a section which deserves much more consideration than it has ever had.

Mr. Cooper: I wish to make a short plea for a class of pensioner of whom we have heard very little. I refer to the pensioners who have adopted youngsters or who act as their guardians. I do not suppose that their numbers are very great. I have in mind a pensioner who is fit enough to do some work, but whose income is £3 3s. a week and who is trying to bring up a boy who goes to school and whose school outfit costs £27, and where there are school dinners and fares to be paid for, too. It leaves the family very little indeed to live upon. It would be interesting to know how many people are in this classification.
Under the Bill the attendance allowance for this class of pensioner is increased from 11s. 6d. to 15s., but, considering the costs which I have mentioned, I think we ought at some future date to consider further help for this very special class of pensioner.
I congraulate the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) upon the ingenuity with which he was able once more to put across the Labour Party's proposals for State superannuation. I hope the Chair will allow me similar latitude for a moment or two. I would say to the hon. Gentleman that there is not very much disagreement in any part of the Committee about the urgent necessity for some proper superannuation scheme as distinct from the present scheme. The Bill is an interim Measure to do something which has to be done quickly. The right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) gave an undertaking that the Bill would go through quickly in order that relief might be given immediately.

Mr. Crossman: It is going through quickly.

Mr. Cooper: It is agreed that by a comprehensive review—

The Deputy-Chairman: I am afraid that the time has come to remind the hon. Member that he has gone far beyond the Fourth Schedule.

Mr. Cooper: I was trying to rebut the argument put forward by the hon. Member for Coventry, East when he was complaining that the Bill was not the correct

method of dealing with the situation and I was endeavouring to say—

The Deputy-Chairman: If an hon. Member wanders too far it does not excuse another hon. Member in following him so far.

Mr. Crossman: I am sure that what the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Cooper) was going to rebut was within the rules of order. What I was pointing out was that if we had a long-term scheme the benefits should be paid for out of the Exchequer and not by the contributors. That is a principle which is relevant to the Bill and to the Schedule.

Mr. Cooper: The hon. Member for Coventry, East and his hon. Friends have throughout our debates on the Bill continually referred to the Exchequer. My right hon. Friend pointed out today that what hon. Gentlemen opposite really mean is the taxpayer, who is every-body—

Mr. Crossman: No.

Mr. Cooper: Yes. The taxpayer is everybody in the country, whether he pays taxation directly or indirectly. So the burden is shared to that extent. So let us not talk of the Exchequer as though it were some quite remote body, or as though, as my right hon. Friend said, it had a chest of gold out of which it could dole out money. When we talk about the Exchequer we mean ourselves, the taxpayers.

The Deputy-Chairman: These comments may have been in order on the Third Schedule dealing with Excheqeur grants. We are now considering the Fourth Schedule.

Mr. Cooper: I hope that the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends are going to be sufficiently honest in the country when promoting their scheme—as we shall have to promote our own proposals when they are known—to point out beyond all doubt that continuous, increased productivity is a sine qua non of any improvement in benefits.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I hope the hon. Gentleman will do us and himself the justice of reading the introduction to the scheme, where we bring this out very clearly indeed.

Mr. Cooper: I have read many Labour Party papers recently, and when the hon. Member for Coventry, East was questioned by the Press about the scheme he replied that he did not mean the first part but the second part. We should like to know what part of the scheme the Labour Party intend.

Mr. Crossman: If the hon. Gentleman wishes to read our views he should read the first part of the document drawn up by the Executive and confirmed by the conference when he will find—

The Deputy-Chairman: The hon. Member is going very far beyond the Fourth Schedule.

Mr. Cooper: All I want to establish is that all of us would like to see improved benefits. We all recognise that the population of the country is ageing, that the working population is becoming smaller, and that, therefore, we have got to have a scheme which promotes better benefits that are related to greater productivity. Anybody who goes about the country proposing any scheme which does not make that clear is being politically dishonest.

Mr. McKay: I want to make another contribution to this debate, but from an angle different from any which has been touched upon so far. It is astonishing how one can bring out all one wants to raise from various angles, with the permission of the Chair. I have a great regard for the principle of more productivity, because if only we can get the employers and the workers to produce twice as much, practically all our difficulties will be solved. This is a very easy method of solving the problem, if only we can implement it, but it is sometimes very difficult to get these easy methods of solving problems to work. When we examine the question of production and the general situation—

The Deputy-Chairman: I hope the hon. Member will not examine the question of production on the Fourth Schedule.

Mr. McKay: But two hon. Members earlier were discussing it, and I should like to do the same.

The Deputy-Chairman: I did not encourage the other hon. Members to do so.

Mr. McKay: Let us get back to the real subject of the discussion.
I understand that we are now discussing general benefits, and speakers have emphasised that there seems to be general agreement that something ought to be done to increase these general benefits. The emphasis has been upon the aged people and also the sick, particularly, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) mentioned, the victims of long-enduring sickness.
I cannot see why, when we apply certain special benefits in the Industrial Injuries Scheme, we cannot recognise the same kind of situation in regard to the man who is sick. I quite agree that sickness for a month or even three months is a misfortune which the unfortunate man eventually gets over, but just as we have the man who suffers a permanent injury at work, so we have the man who is permanently sick. He may have been a healthy man, whose sickness may have come upon him because of various circumstances that cannot be brought within the terms of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act. Therefore, I think that those who suffer prolonged illness should have some special benefit in any future scheme.
The real difficulty is that of financing such schemes. We all realise that a point has been reached at which we cannot, with any degree of confidence at all, expect the lower-paid man to be in a position to contribute more than we are asking him to do now. We have reached the highest level in that regard. Having given consideration not only to the general community, but also to those people who get more money still without working, we now have to consider the lower-paid man and the provsions for general benefits.
The great problem here is said to be how to do it, but to me there is no problem at all. That is a rather peculiar thing to say, perhaps, and some people might say that it is rather silly. Nevertheless, there are sonic things which, when they are pointed out, as in the case of great inventions, are found to be capable of some quite simple solution. After a solution is reached, we say "Why did we not discover it long ago?" Many things have looked difficult until the solution has been found, when one is able to look back at the situation and realise how simple


was the solution which often has produced a great invention.
The same applies to the great problem we have to face today. The question is how to get the money.

The Deputy-Chairman: That is not the question on the Fourth Schedule.

8.15 p.m.

Mr. McKay: It is like everything else; we have various interpretations. We are talking about benefits, but what is the use of talking about benefits if we cannot suggest some line of action by which to pay them?

The Deputy-Chairman: That arises on another Schedule.

Mr. McKay: I am sorry, Sir Gordon. On the question of the difficulties of the Exchequer over these benefits and how they are to be paid for, I suggest that the Chancellor is giving away today about £205 million which people will get back out of the contributions paid to the scheme. That sum of £205 million, at least, is represented by tax reliefs to employers and workers, and yet we are pretending that there is great difficulty in paying the benefits which we are so anxious to pay.
To me, it is an easy problem to solve. All we have to do is to take back that money which has been given to people to the extent of £205 million. We can solve that simple problem in that way, by stopping paying this back-handed money and putting it back into the Exchequer. Then we should be able to pay for the benefits. This is certainly one of the matters that ought to be examined.
I am speaking seriously about this. I see that the Minister is laughing. Perhaps he has no right to laugh, because he never thought of this himself. Why does the right hon. Gentleman laugh? Because his secret has been discovered? He has been found out. He is a Minister applying his mentality to an insurance scheme of great consequence to the country at large. He has been spending hours and hours of his time upon it. We are told that his lights are burning night and day, and that he is working hard. I believe that the right hon. Gentleman is a lawyer, but, with all his intelligence and all that additional knowledge, the Minister does not realise how much money is

being paid out of the Exchequer to people who are not beneficiaries in the ordinary sense, though they are beneficiaries all right, in another sense. There is no question about it, and it cannot be denied. Despite the fact that the Chancellor is giving all this back-handed money to such a great extent, he is trying to make the country believe that we cannot pay far better benefits than we are doing.
To my mind, there is no problem at all. I am speaking seriously and conscientiously, without any thought of party at all, but thinking only about the poor man who has been sick for months and of the old pensioners who have lived for years in great difficulty. I say that the fact that a few intelligent people in the House of Commons are pretending that they cannot solve this problem is one of the greatest financial fiascos that I ever knew.
In reality, the money is coming into the Fund, and we are paying all this money back in another form to people who are not aged, who are not pensioners, not sick or unemployed. It is a real problem, but the solution of that problem is not at all difficult. I have heard some hon. Members say that where the spirit is willing, it is astonishing what one can do. I say the same about the problem of National Insurance benefits. We all pretend—the whole country pretends—that we are behind this National Insurance Scheme. We pretend that we have brought to bear upon this situation all the intelligence and sincerity possible, and that we cannot do any more than we have been doing.
I know that I am taking a little time. I do not speak on many occasions, but I usually speak with real sincerity. That is the thing that matters. I may be wrong—I am always prepared to admit that—but I am putting this argument forward with all the strength and intelligence that I possess, because this is a real national problem upon which we should bring to bear every point of view in considering where our loyalty to the poor people lies.
Cannot we do better without straining ourselves any more? We say that it is a difficult problem, and that the necessary finance is difficult to get. I look to the Minister of Pensions and I look to my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman). My hon. Friend


has an open mind and is prepared to consider new suggestions. I am asking him, as representing the Labour Party, to look very closely at this matter and to see whether we have not made tremendous mistakes in the past. The Labour Party has admitted that it has made mistakes when it was in power, and if it were frank the Tory Party would say the same. It is often a mistake which humanity makes which causes better things to be brought about. I think that that can be said about this great national problem.

Mr. Prentice: It is no accident that a great many speeches upon this Schedule and upon other parts of the Bill have referred to the Labour Party's national superannuation scheme. If I refer to it at length I shall be told that I am out of order, but I would make the point that the way in which it has intruded into our debate is a tribute to the fact that the Labour Party has produced a real plan to deal with a real problem, whereas the Government have produced no plan, and are merely tinkering with the problem.
All the smug references made by hon. Members opposite about how much they have done ignore just how small an addition they are making to the rates of pensions. The most common rate—the one that is the key to the rest—is the rise of 10s. a week in the basic rate for a single person in respect of retirement pension, sickness benefit and unemployment benefit. If everybody were going to get that it would still be too small, but we must remind ourselves once more that a very large proportion will not get that amount.
The poorest people, who are in receipt of National Assistance, will receive an increase of 5s. instead of 10s. and if they have been getting the benefit of the tobacco allowance they will receive only 2s. 8d. Large numbers of old-age pensioners are very near the National Assistance level; possibly some are below it and are not applying for it—and all those who are not receiving it will get an increase of 7s. 8d. if they have been getting the benefit of the tobacco allowance. That increase is 2d. more than the rise in rent which many of them had in October, under the Government's Rent Act.
These very small and inadequate increases are all the worse when we consider how long people have had to wait for them. The last rise in benefits under the relevant Acts was in April and May, 1955. I resist the temptation to comment upon the significance of the date. The point is that by the time that these proposed increases come into effect, next January, there will have been an interval of almost three years during which the pensioners have seen the real value of their pensions going down and those receiving other fixed incomes have seen their value going down, too—three years in which these people have never known whether, or to what extent, the Government would do anything to help them.
It is therefore particularly intolerable that when, at long last, these small increases come into effect at the beginning of next year, nothing should be written into the Bill to protect the pensioners against inflation. Furthermore, we know that in April there will be additional increases of rent under the Rent Act, and we have reason to expect that under the policies of the Government the value of the pension will go down even further. It is bad enough to award such a low increase, but to do so when it is probable that its real value will go down, and when there is no provision for another increase for two or three years, is especially bad.
I suggest that there is a moral problem underlying all this argument. The question is, how far are those of us who are fit and in work prepared to make proper provision for the elderly, the sick, and the unemployed? This is a problem which specially affects people of my own age—people who are old enough to realise that youth does not last forever but young enough still to have the larger half of their working life ahead of them, if they survive. The people of my generation should face the necessity of making a larger sacrifice now in order to help the elderly people and the other categories I have mentioned and, in the long run, to provide for themselves when they have need.
Many problems are inseparable from old age. Elderly people, in the nature of things, suffer more illnesses than younger people. They usually suffer the loss of some physical faculties, and sometimes the loss of mental faculties. They very often suffer bereavement and from loneliness, and sometimes, unhappily, from a


sense of not being wanted. Surely it is intolerable that, on top of those problems, we should impose another kind of penalty.
We should face this problem and make bigger and better provision for it. I do not think that we can do so upon the basis of the present scheme. We can do so only by introducing a scheme whereby people contribute according to their ability to pay. But even under the present scheme something more should have been done. The Government have underestimated the idealism, and the long-term realism, of our people, who would have made bigger sacrifices in order to provide better benefits. They have underestimated in two ways: first, by being too late with their Bill and, secondly, by providing too little in the Bill. The country will not forgive them for that mistake.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The Question before the Committee is, "That this be the Fourth Schedule to the Bill," and, as the Committee is aware, it is the Schedule which effects the improvements in benefits under the National Insurance part of the Bill.
I lack the Parliamentary adroitness which would enable me adequately to follow either the hon. Member for Wall-send (Mr. McKay) or the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman)—both of whom made characteristic speeches—along, if I may so phrase it, the outer perimeter of the rules of order. Therefore, I will confine myself to answering those questions which the hon. Member for Coventry, East asked when, as I thought somewhat reluctantly under persuasion from the Chair, he approached the Schedule before us.
I noted with interest the hon. Gentleman's proposal that the increase in National Insurance benefit should be financed solely from the Exchequer. I also noted with interest that his suggestion has not been repeated from the Front Bench opposite. I will merely express the opinion—I know that I should be out of order were I to go further—that that would be extraordinarily unfortunate for the future of the National Insurance Scheme, quite apart from the very considerable burden it would impose upon the taxpayers.

Mr. Crossman: I hope that what I said was that if we had a period when, while carrying through a great reform, we

had to finance a short-term immediate increase, I thought that a case could be made out for doing it through the Exchequer during the months while we were carrying through a great reform. That is not quite what has been attributed to me by the Minister.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The hon. Gentleman has now used the expression "months." From his study of the subject, he must realise perfectly well that even when his scheme is complete—and his own letter to The Times made it clear that it is very far from being complete—there would be, even were his party in office, a very considerable period indeed before we could complete a change, for example, in the method of collecting the contributions. To talk of an interval of months is to mislead himself and the Committee.
A change of this nature, even when it has been worked out—and we are in agreement that the hon. Gentleman's scheme is simply an outline, and he has accepted that the original figures in Part II contain fundamental miscalculations—would require a matter of years before it was implemented. Therefore, it is not quite such a trifling period of months as the hon. Gentleman is suggesting. I should have thought the abandonment, the frank abandonment, even for what on the face of it is intended to be a temporary period, of the contributory basis of the National Insurance Scheme would be a serious step to take.
Let me come to the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) who, after a preliminary foray into what I thought was the sphere of the Third Schedule, returned with admirable punctuality and speed to this Schedule. The hon. Gentleman is not right when he says that a very large proportion of retirement pensioners have National Assistance and would not receive the full increase in pension. He is not right any more than was the Daily Herald yesterday, when it went further than that. The hon. Gentleman must know—the figures have been given again and again in this House—that in relation to pensioner households, the latest figure was 24·1 per cent. Applying that figure to the total number of pensioners, it becomes, if anything, a slightly smaller figure. To suggest, therefore, that a large proportion is receiving only 2s. 8d. is not fair—

Mr. Prentice: I meant a large number of people.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I took down the hon. Gentleman's words—"a very large proportion"—which I now gather he desires to withdraw.

Mr. Prentice: No. "A large proportion" does not necessarily mean the majority. I meant a large number of people and I will substitute the words, "a large number of people", if it makes the Minister happier. I think it is about I million people.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: It is, in fact, less than a quarter. As I say, I must acquit the hon. Gentleman of going anything like as far as did the Daily Herald, which seemed to think that most retirement pensioners are drawing supplementation by assistance.

Mr. Stan Awbery: Can the Minister give us a number?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: If the hon. Gentleman had listened, he would know that I have already done so. I cannot be led into what would be certainly repetition, and what might even be thought to be tedious repetition.
The hon. Member for East Ham, North became very indignant about the length of time between the date on which these changes become operative and the last change. He said that it was three years. I will not quarrel with the hon. Gentleman very much over that figure. In fact, it will be two and three-quarter years—a very much shorter period than that between 1946 and September, 1951.

Mr. E. G. Willis: That is not an argument.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The hon. Gentleman says that it is not an argument—

Mr. Willis: Of course it is not.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Surely the hon. Gentleman admits that his right hon. Friends are humane and well-meaning people. He does not perhaps appreciate the compliment that he is paying to the Government, if he expects of us a speed of action in this matter—criticises us, indeed, for a speed of action in this matter—which is twice that of his right hon. Friends.
The right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) raised another matter which, I accept, is of major importance. He will appreciate, no one better, that with the exception of the Measure introduced in 1951 by the right hon. Lady the Member for Warrington (Dr. Summerskill), National Insurance Bills have taken the line that the main benefits should be at the same basic rates. The right hon. Lady introduced a differentiation in favour of the older retirement pensioner, as compared with the other rates of benefit.
The problem of the long-term sick is very real. I think the view has been generally accepted that there is much to be said for long-term benefits to be on the same basis as the short-term. The duration of benefit either for long-term or short-term sickness is not necessarily longer than that of retirement pension, and may well be shorter than that of the benefit received by the widow.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I know that the new scheme is for the future. I was not proposing that the standard benefit for sickness should be different, so long as there was a flat rate. I was suggesting that after the sickness has lasted for some time we ought to use the provisions of the Industrial Injuries Act for the unemployability and constant attendance allowance for the sick man, and that constant attendance allowance should be one of the additional benefits for people of that kind.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that the introduction of these matters into National Insurance would involve treating the recipient of long-term National Insurance sickness benefit more generously than the widow or the retirement pensioner, who may have been on retirement pension for many years. That was the difficulty I was putting very frankly to the right hon. Gentleman. He does not see but I think many people will see, a profound difference.

Mr. Griffiths: I see no difference, for these reasons. Take two people living next door to each other. I will put the matter in human terms. One man has disability and sickness due to pneumoconiosis. He therefore becomes entitled to benefit from all the provisions of the Industrial Injuries Act. Another man is


suffering from emphysema, which is not scheduled as an industrial disease. The first man can get disablement benefit, with sickness benefit in addition or, alternatively can get unemployability benefit. If he is deemed to need constant attendance he can get constant attendance allowance. The second man gets only sickness benefit at the standard rate. Could not some of these benefits be provided for him? That is what I am suggesting.
I beg Ministers not to close their minds to this suggestion, which might be included within the confines of the Bill. The Minister might very well put the suggestion to the Advisory Committee. This is a matter in which we all live and learn from experience. This suggestion occurred to me many years ago and I am now giving the right hon. Gentleman the idea. I should be very glad to see it brought forward in the Bill. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman can submit it to the Advisory Committee, on which there are representatives of the approved societies and others who care for the long-term sick.
I said when I was a Minister, and I say now, that we have always put other beneficiaries before these members of our community. Who lobbies for these people? No one; because they have no organisation and are precious few in number. Nobody bothers about them. Not for the first time I am putting in a word for them and I beg the Minister to consider whether this is not a matter which might, with the consent of all hon. Members, he looked at again.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The right hon. Member has stated the matter, as he always does, with eloquence. He has also touched—I do not know how fully he appreciates this—on the fundamental distinction between the system of industrial injuries with its different and generally higher scale of benefits in respect of a man injured at work, as compared with the National Insurance Scheme, which applies where similar injuries are suffered by someone going about his ordinary life. The scale of benefit is lower there and without those special allowances. Perhaps that is too profound a question to debate on the Question, "That this be the Fourth Schedule to the Bill." It raises questions which are far too big to be committed

without further careful thought even to the Advisory Committee.
The right hon. Member has also not faced the problem that by remedying an apparent anomaly between two people, one under National Insurance and another under the Industrial Injuries Scheme, he may be creating another anomaly in the case of the man who in old age is living on retirement pension. I do not intend to detain the Committee by pursuing these arguments which go to the roots of the question on the Fourth Schedule which deals largely with rates, but I thought it only courteous to point out that interesting, humane and sympathetic as the ideas of the right hon. Member may be, they raise profoundly difficult problems, which would have to be thrashed out before any such step as he suggested could be undertaken.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Cooper) raised a particular case. It is difficult to deal with a particular case without having the full facts. It certainly seemed that it might well be a case for guardian's allowance, which under the Schedule is being raised very substantially—from 18s. to 27s. 6d. I think it might be most convenient if my hon. Friend will draw that particular case to my attention and we will see whether it is possible to do anything about it.
I accept, also, the firm statement of my hon. Friend that the taxpayer on whom it is suggested this additional burden shall be imposed is, in fact, everybody, or almost everybody. When I was at the Treasury I worked out that the only person likely to avoid paying any taxation at all would be a bachelor who neither smoked, shaved nor washed and was serving a long term of imprisonment.
One or two hon. Members asked about the Rent Act in the context of these proposals. I would remind those who raised that question of what was said by my right hon. Friend the then Minister of Housing and Local Government when that Bill was going through the House. He invited the attention of the House to the fact that the Rent Act affected only a minority of houses. He gave the estimate, which, to the best of my knowledge still stands, that the ultimate long-term effect when the whole of the Act went through would be about 2 per cent. on cost of living.
The hon. Member for Coventry, East referred again to the article in The Times on which he and I had some discussion yesterday. He did, of course, slur, I am sure accidentally, the fact that The Times, while not giving, in any event, the index on which it based its calculation, did say that that was a forecast of the value in 1958. Without knowing what increase in prices was forecast for that purpose, I doubt whether we could take it very much further.

Mr. Crossman: That is the question I asked. As the right hon. Gentleman repudiates that forecast, I asked what was the forecast on which he made the calculation to increase the amount by 10s.? To make that increase he must decide what it will be on certain living standards. If The Times was wrong, what was his own forecast?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: If the hon. Member will wait I am going to deal with those issues. As he raised the question of The Times article I thought it courteous to refer to it, but as he raises the question now, before mentioning certain figures and comparisons, I will say that I think it a fundamental mistake made by hon. Members opposite that in all these matters they seek to approach the problem in too mathematical and too definite an attempt to calculate with a precision, which is, in fact, quite impossible owing to the uncertainty of the data. We got very used to these forecasts during the days of the last Labour Government. The levels of trade and of employment were forecast by that Government with minute precision every year and by the end of the year were shown to be quite inaccurate.
8.45 p.m.
Speaking with great respect for the hon. Member for Coventry, East, I do not intend to adopt the technique of assuming precise changes in prices. I have great confidence that the bold and determined attack on inflation by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be successful, and I know that both sides of the Committee hope that it will be successful. I certainly will not be led into precise statistical forecasts the precision of which would be misleading because it would be based on assumptions themselves necessarily imprecise.
Another factor is involved in considering the level of benefits. Several hon. Members drew attention to the fact—indeed, it is one of the reasons that we are improving the benefits—that for a great many people retirement means a fall in the standard of living, but it is a mistake to exaggerate the amount of that fall. It is often forgotten how much retirement is being delayed and how much increments are being earned over and above the basic pension.
It may interest the Committee to know that 50 per cent. of the men now retiring have earned some increments, that the average they have earned is 9s. 6d. for a single person or 15s. for a married couple, and that when we add these figures to the 50s. for a single person and 80s. for a married couple contained in the Schedule, the result is in one case 6d. below and in the other case 10s. above the figures proposed by the Labour Party.
I promised to give some figures about the level of benefits. Perhaps I may begin with a platitude and by asking the forgiveness of the Committee for expressing it, but it is the basis of what I shall say. We are concerned with the real value of benefits and with what they will buy. Precise comparisons depend upon the index which we use. If we use the Index of Retail Prices it is then clear—and I gave these figures at an earlier stage—that the proposals in the Schedule involve raising the single rate in real terms by 7s. 8d. above the 1946 level and by 12s. 1d. above the September 1951 level.
It is sometimes suggested that the Index of Retail Prices is not the most appropriate measuring rod for this purpose, and I will, therefore, give some comparable calculations. It is always said, and said with truth, that in the pensioners' expenditure food is the single element of the greatest importance. If we trace the movement of food prices alone since 1946, then we find that their upward movement has been somewhat less than that of the complete index. If we take the index which has almost passed into history under the name of the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Mikardo), the Mikardo index, and make the comparison between September—October, 1951 and to-day, the 12s. 1d. on the index of retail prices works out at 11s. 5d. That is very much in the same bracket.
Those are, I think, indications that whatever index one takes, the proposals in the Schedule constitute a substantial advance, as I said on Second Reading. It is, of course, always easy and—I say it without wishing to be discourteous—particularly easy for an Opposition to say, "That is all right, but we should have done more." It is in truth a not inconsiderable achievement in the present economic situation to be able to bring about an advance in real terms in these benefits.
Our discussion has ranged very largely—and very naturally, perhaps—on that section whose benefit will be reduced to some extent by the loss of the tobacco token, but the Committee will want to remember that, quite apart from those retirement pensioners who have never had the benefit and are, therefore, unaffected by its withdrawal, the new basic rates are all raised to this new level including the benefits for widowhood, sickness, and so on, where there was never any question of the tobacco token, and where, therefore, there has been no withdrawal of it.
Then in this Schedule we take a different line from that taken in the plan for which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Coventry, East has been responsible. We do not accept his view that the married couple pensioners should have no bigger increase than the single pensioner. On the contrary, we take the view—taken, I think, in all previous National Insurance Bills—that an increase adequate for the single pensioner is, in the nature of things, not adequate for the married couple, and we have, therefore, increased the rate for the married couple by 15s., from 65s. to 80s.
Criticism was made yesterday, and it is material to this issue, of the share of the national income taken by National Insurance benefits, and I have got hold of the figures which are material to this Schedule. It is interesting to notice that if one compares 1950 with 1956, which is the last full year for which we have figures, the expenditure on National Insurance benefits expressed as a percentage of the gross national product has risen from 3·3 per cent. to 3·7 per cent. Indeed, if we take another package—National Insurance benefits with Assistance grants and non-contributory old-age pensions added—the increase is from 4·1 per cent. to 4·4 per cent. Therefore, the suggestion made yesterday—

Mr. J. Griffiths: I quote from memory, but my impression is that the percentage we spent in 1950 on insurance was decreasing. When the right hon. Gentleman speaks of the increase as being from 4·1 to 4·4 per cent., is he making allowance for the fact that, as we all know, there will be an increasing number of old-age pensioners? It is not the increase in benefits, but the increase in the number of recipients.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The right hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly fair point. In this case, I am comparing 1956 with 1950, and I was about to come to the very point that the right hon. Gentleman has made. But I think that it is at least encouraging and, indeed, is a contradiction of what was said by at least one hon. Gentleman opposite yesterday, but not today, to the effect that a smaller share of the national product was being used for benefits. However, the right hon. Gentleman has touched on a point that we must all bear in mind, of course, in considering the question of the appropriate level of benefits.
As he has reminded us, and rightly, next year the number of pensioners will substantially increase with the coming on to pension of, among others, the late-age entrants. I have given the figures on previous occasions and will not weary this Committee with them now, but we certainly have to bear in mind the increasing number of retirement pensioners whom our community will have to help and support I am grateful to the right hon Gentleman for reminding us that that is a very proper factor for all of us in this Committee to take into account—

Mr. Hunter: The Minister has mentioned the large number of people who are coming on to retirement pension, but has he also in mind the larger number coming from the schools into industry, which will reach its peak of about 300,000 in 1961?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: That is true, but the hon. Gentleman, and the country as a whole will not find an easy solution there, because very steadily over the next twenty years the proportion of older people in the population will increase.
The figures that I have in mind—and I give them subject, if I may, to subsequent correction—are that whereas at the moment there are about 7 million people


over retirement pension age—I refer not to pensioners only, but to all people over retirement pension age—by 1979–80 there will be about 9½ million. I think that those figures are, broadly, correct. For every reason I wish that the hon. Gentleman's suggestion were the answer to the problem, but it is the fact that we have to consider the future of a population steadily becoming older.

Mr. Crossman: In view of what my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) said about the increasing number of recipients, has the Minister made any effort to work out whether the amount per head has in-increased? From our point of view, it is not very interesting to know what the global allocation to pensioners is. We have to ensure that each man gets his share and each family gets its share of the increased national income. I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman could deal with it in terms of income per head and not income related to the global number of pensioners. I would be curious to know what the figure is.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I cannot give those further figures without notice, but I rely upon the figures which I have already given as showing the real improvement in the actual purchasing power of these benefits compared with 1946 or 1951.
We have still the Third Reading ahead of us, and I shall not seek, even on this important Schedule, to detain the Committee further, but I thought it only courteous, in view of the importance of this Schedule and the points that have been raised, to deal with it a little more fully than some of the Amendments.

Mr. Willis: It is not my wish to detain the Committee either, but I am bound to read to the Minister the first reaction of the old-age pensioners in my division to his proposal.
The right hon. Gentleman has made a very clever reply, to which one could, of course, also reply if one chose to devote the time. One could select figures in the same way as he has done to prove precisely the opposite. The fact remains that in accordance with the true Tory tradition, the poorest get least, and that happens every time the Tory Government try to do anything.
I cannot help recalling that only a few months ago in the City of Edinburgh the department of social science and the Edinburgh Corporation's welfare department carried out a survey of the needs of the elderly people, and they found in Edinburgh alone 17,000 cases of different types of need amongst people over sixty.
One of the interesting features about that survey—I do not want to go into it in detail; I hope to be able to raise the matter another time—was that 10,000 old-age pensioners in Edinburgh alone could not get their laundry attended to. In other words, they could not keep themselves clean. It is all very well in the atmosphere of the House of Commons, after we have dined well and—listening to the speeches opposite—wined well, to talk complacently about whether we can afford this, that or the other. Of course, that is quite an unreal approach.
The problem of poverty cannot be viewed from afar. It has got to be viewed from inside the homes of the people. Anyone who visits these homes and sits by the firesides of these people knows that a tremendous amount of poppycock is talked about how well-off the pensioners are and about what a great deal we are doing for them. In fact, we are doing very little for them. Hon. Members who talk so glibly about inflation and who say that we are not able to give the pensioner a little more will wander along to the smoke room and buy a couple of cigars which will cost the whole of this increase. The hon. Lady, the Joint Parliamentary Secretary says "Stupid," but it is true. It is exactly this which infuriates people who have to suffer indignities and poverty.
I have heard the hon. Lady talking about her acquaintance with poverty, about the districts where she has lived and where she was brought up. In fact, she used to be very fond of telling us about her working-class background. She knows that what I am saying is true, and it is not a matter for laughter that some people in this country can afford to pay as much for one meal as a pensioner gets to keep himself for a week. That is not a laughing matter. There is something wrong with the society in which that is tolerated.
9.0 p.m.
I received this resolution, as I went to the post office, from one of the largest branches of the Scottish Old-Age Pensions' Association, which apparently has been considering the provisions of this Schedule:
That we, the members of the Southfield Branch, Scottish Old-Age Pensions Association, protest most strongly against the parsimonious attitude adopted by the Government to our demand for £1 increase to basic rate of pension.
The withdrawal of tobacco tokens, increase in National Insurance contributions, and the curtailment of National Assistance grants become a violation of the Government's pledge, 'That the care and comfort of the old people would be a sacred trust'.
This is the way the Government fulfil that sacred trust. The very poorest of the community are to get 32d. per week. What a magnificent gesture what a generous gesture from a party put into power by the wealthiest people in the country, by a party which, to fight its elections, collects millions from the wealthiest people in the country, many of whom, of course, do not even earn; they inherit their money. An hon. Member laughs, but that is true, of course. These people ought to be getting it; they have worked for it; they have worked to permit others to enjoy it. The Government, out of their generosity, say, "Here are a few crumbs—32 pennies per week." What a gesture.
I am glad that the pension is being increased, but, for heaven's sake, do not let the House of Commons go away tonight in the belief that it has done a grand thing. It has done something mean, niggardly, and done it very late in the day. It ought to have been done before. I do not think that we should congratulate ourselves on this Schedule. It is not so generous as all that. It is something about which we ought to be thinking much more seriously and on the lines that we have suggested.

Question put and agreed to.

Schedule agreed to.

Fifth and Sixth Schedules agreed to.

Bill reported, without Amendment.

9.4 p.m.

Miss Pitt: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
We are nearing the end, in this House at least, of the Bill under discussion, and I imagine that hon. Members would not wish me to cross again the ground which has been crossed and recrossed so much in the past few days. But this much is certain. Despite the differences that there may be between us on the merits of the Bill and of the proposed increases, we are all agreed that we want to get the Measure on the Statute Book as quickly as possible.
If the Bill is enacted in the time we hope, we shall be able to pay the main benefits on 27th January next, that is, retirement pension, widow's benefit, guardian's allowance and the child's special allowance. This, if we achieve it, will be the shortest time ever taken in putting through amended benefits. It will have taken less than 12 weeks from the date my right hon. Friend made his first announcement on 6th November, and about two months from enactment if all goes well.
The Bill raises pensions and other benefits to the highest level yet. It will bring help to those who need it as quickly as we can possibly accomplish it. It is a good Measure, and I ask the House to give the Bill a Third Reading.

9.6 p.m.

Mr. C. W. Gibson: I have not taken part in the discussions on this Bill, partly because I feel so angry about the meanness of the proposals and I have a habit of losing my temper. If the Joint Parliamentary Secretary thinks that the Bill will be overwhelmingly welcomed in the country, she is much mistaken.
My purpose in rising is merely to point out that the line which some of us are taking is being taken also by people in the constituencies who are not necessarily supporters of the Labour Party. I have here the editorial from a newspaper in my division, the South-Western Star, which is not a Labour paper by any means. Last Friday, this newspaper said:
What a slap in the face with a wet fish the new old-age pension rate is. Is it surprising that the old folk are angry with the paltry increase which will leave them no more comfortable by the time a bob or two of their 'supplementary' has been withdrawn and they start paying full price for their smokes—if they will be able to afford them.


While no one will refuse to take the few extra coppers which the Bill will provide, everyone is bitterly disappointed about the improvement which has been made. They are extremely disappointed at the Government's meanness about tobacco vouchers and the rest.
It would not be right for the House to let the Bill receive a Third Reading without registering the fact that support for the criticisms made from this side of the House about its overall meanness to the oldest, most deserving people in the community, to those most in need, has been coming from many powerful interests, powerful newspaper interests in addition to other forms of public opinion in the constituencies.
Although the Bill will go through, I hope that the Minister will realise that he is not likely to receive any handsome bouquets in the constituencies when the money is paid.

9.8 p.m.

Mr. George Thomas: I, too, am glad that the Bill has reached its final stage. I am sorry that the Minister has not felt able to accept a single one of the Amendments put forward by the Opposition.
When the proposals in the Bill, which have now been accepted in Committee, were made known to the country, the National Federation of Old-Age Pensions Associations happened to be holding a great rally in Westminster Central Hall, as the Minister knows. The old-age pensioners there assembled sent over to this House special representatives to obtain copies of the Bill, which the Minister was good enough to ensure were supplied.
The House will not be surprised to know that the contents of the Bill caused dismay to the organised old-age pensioners. They had been led by speeches from the Prime Minister and other members of the Government to expect a generous measure of relief. The Prime Minister himself said, "Wait until our pensions proposals are known", and at Ipswich the Tories fought on the promise of relief for the old folk
The proposals now before the House indicate what generosity is by Tory standards. If this be generosity, what is meanness? We are putting upon our old

folk the certain assurance that during this winter they will still be faced with poverty and hardship. I do not believe that there is a single Member of the House, including the Minister and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, who really believes that when this Measure is on the Statute Book it will end poverty amongst the old folk. When this Bill has passed through another place as well as this House, and when the increased payment is being made, our old folk will still be below the subsistence level to which they are entitled.
The House has had the opportunity to do the right thing and to do it well. After a long delay it is a pity that the Minister has not seized his chance with both hands. I do not know whether he did not fight the Treasury hard enough, or whether he felt from the beginning that these figures were good enough, but whoever is to blame carries the responsibility for losing an opportunity to do the right thing and to do it well.

9.12 p.m.

Mr. T. Brown: In a few words, I want to express my complete disappointment at what the Bill contains. I am amazed at the number of letters which I have received, particularly since the beginning of the Committee stage of the Bill on Monday. It appears to me that the attitude of the Government on this Measure has aroused more anger and resentment amongst the old folk than any Measure that has previously been before the House. Old folk in the past may not have been concerned with what is done in this Chamber, but they are becoming very much aware that if they are to have a fair deal then it must be done through the medium of this institution. Therefore, they feel gravely troubled about the attitude of the Government in presenting to them after waiting so long a Measure of this character.
It is not my intention to go into other benefits. What I am concerned with is the benefit that the Measure gives to old people. We shall watch the other side, but the old people, who have no organisation as we understand organisations, are forced into the position of seeking other institutions and organisations with which to lodge their protest. After three days' debate, as the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas) said, we have not got one bawbee as a result of our


pleadings from this side of the House. It would have been better if the Government had at least considered all the Amendments we put forward on their merits, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) said during the debate. We are dealing with a section of people who are entitled to the best that the country can give them. I cannot understand the mentality of the Department of the Minister or of the Treasury in refusing to give them something more generous than is contained in the Bill.
I am sadly disappointed. I began the week full of hope, which I thought would be realised, but we have had a harsh and ungenerous attitude from the members of the Government Front Bench, who have failed to realise their obligation to the old people. If I were to go back into history and read some of the things that were said in the early days when we were advocating pensions, I should startle the House; but we have moved from those days and now we have a growing population of old people. Sooner or later—sooner, I hope—that population will have to be cared for much better than they have been during the last three or four years. It is all very well for the hon. Lady to say that this is the highest increase they have ever been given—

Mr. G. Thomas: It is the highest ever cost of living.

Mr. Brown: —but if the Home Secretary was correct in his prophecy, which I have no reason to doubt, that we would double the standard of living within the next twenty-five years, is this the Government's first attempt towards it? Is this evidence that they are sincere in their professed desire to double the standard of life?
When the old folk to whom the Bill applies realise fully, as they will do hi the course of the next few months, what the Government have done for them, their protests and their indignation will become intensified. Therefore, I say that the Government could have done better than they have done with the funds which they have available.
If the whole of the benefits were coming from the Exchequer, one could perhaps take a different view, but it is the workers, through their contributions, who will be

paying for some of the benefits. The Government, therefore, had better not claim credit for the increased benefits. It is the workers who will be entitled to the credit for them. I know that some of the workers feel that the Government have been unfair to them, let alone to the old-age pensioner. They are dissatisfied with the Government's approach in increasing the contribution, which appears to be on an incorrect basis.
In a scheme of this magnitude, dealing with so many people and so many aspects of life, we have to carry the insured worker with us. Already in my constituency and in parts of the country which I have visited in the last few weeks, I have sensed a growing feeling that what the Government are trying to do is to improve the lot of the old-age pensioner at the expense of the industrial worker and that the Government themselves are not bearing their responsibility.
One could go into the question of the increased cost of living and all the rest, but we have been prevented from doing so by the open confession made by the hon. Lady on 25th February when she said that the Government never pretended that old-age pensioners could live on £2 a week. Can they live on £2 10s.? Is it possible for any Member of this House—and I include myself—to live on £2 10s. a week? I know one attempted to do it and declared with a great blare of trumpets she had succeeded in living upon the pension paid to an old-age pensioner. I could do it for one week, but what about the other fifty-one? The old-age pensioners have to live on their pensions for fifty-two weeks in the year.
I shall detain the House only a moment longer. I wish only to refer to the vigorous protest which has been made in the last few days by engineers, metal workers, pipe fitters and transport workers who are reported to have sent from a joint meeting held a few days ago a protest to the Prime Minister about the
inadequate increase in the old-age pension and the miserly removal of the tobacco allowance, together with a demand for the full a week increase
which the old-age pensioners are asking for.
There we see the industrial workers being aroused, and when they are aroused, as we all know, especially those of us who


come from the mining industry, the Government will not be able to answer them back.
We as Britishers are anxious in these days of economic crisis to do the best we can to pull the country through the crisis, but we cannot pull it through unless we take the workers with us. At the present the Government are not attempting to take the workers with them. As the days go by the protest of the people of this country will grow greater, and too great for the Government to stand up to. I am only sorry that the Government, during these three days we have debated the Bill, have not done better for the old-age pensioners than they have.

9.22 p.m.

Mr. Hunter: I shall not detain the House very long. I share in the disappointment expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown) about the Bill. I am disappointed in that it falls far short of my expectations of what might have been done for the old people. I have sat in the Chamber throughout these three days of debate. Although I cannot congratulate the Minister on his Bill, I will say that the right hon. Gentleman paid the Committee the compliment of being present all through its debates. However much we may differ from the Minister about the provisions of the Bill, I do not think any Minister could have put in more attendance than the right hon. Gentleman has.
The Minister must expect great disappointment to be felt by the poorest people on National Assistance. They will get an increase in the retirement pension and then they will find that there will be a reduction in their National Assistance because the retirement pension is increased. The Minister will also find great disappointment among the old-age pensioners at the withdrawal of the tobacco concession, which was made ten years ago. It was made to the old people because of the price of cigarettes and tobacco. It was felt that the burden of that price was too much for the old people and that they would not be able to enjoy a smoke. If that was true ten years ago it is equally true today, for cigarettes and tobacco have gone up in price since 1947.
I spoke in the Committee tonight on the subject of the contributions and I

think the 9s. 5d. for the lower-paid worker is far too heavy a burden, and the burden of the 7s. 8d. for women in the lower-income groups is also too much. These increased contributions are payable at the age of eighteen and yet at that age one is almost a boy who has hardly left school. A boy may leave school at 16 or 17, but at the age of 18 he is called upon to pay back 9s. 5d. a week from his wages. The same thing applies to girls. Therefore, on behalf of those in the lower-income groups, I want to add my protest against these contributions.
I repeat that these proposals fall below my expectations. I should like to see higher rates of benefits for the old, the sick and the unemployed. Perhaps the next Bill will bring us what we all want. The problem of our old people is the challenge of our time, but I feel that this generation can face up to the future. We want the aged to enjoy a proper standard of life, and I believe that if the appeal and the urge is made to them, the workers of this country will answer it.

9.26 p.m.

Mr. Crossman: I should like to add my little epitaph to the Bill. The fact is that, from one point of view, the Bill is already dead before we have finished with it. Everybody knows, before it passes its Third Reading, that it is totally inadequate, even before we have finished with it.
There is not much that one can say on Third Reading, because there is not much in the Bill. It is particularly significant that the Minister gave us an excellent speech of nearly thirty minutes on the Fourth Schedule when he was discussing our positive proposals and not those in the Bill. The most striking facts were the very few hon. Members on the Government side of the House who thought it worth attending and the embarrassed silence of those who did attend. There must have been fewer speeches in support of the Bill on the Government side in Committee than for many years has been the case on an important Bill. I can remember hardly more than two or three speeches—and they raised groans from their hon. Friends on the Government side—by hon. Members opposite who tried to support the Bill, and those who did only embarrassed their own Front Bench. Frankly, I think that the only


support that could be given to it was silent acquiescence in its inadequacy.
I think my hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown) was very hard on the Government Front Bench. I want to pay tribute to both the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary for their attendance throughout the Bill because we have greatly appreciated the way they have treated the House. I do not regard them as hard-hearted, but merely as submissive. It is quite clear that they know perfectly well that the Bill is inadequate. The Minister is far too able a Minister and far too humane a man not to realise that. We all know that he had two Bills ready, but that the second one was dropped because he was told to drop it—the big long-term reform. What we all see in the Bill is another example of the "Macmillan myth". We were told that when a new Prime Minister came in, we should get a new dynamic type of Tory leadership—none of this old floppy Edenism, but strong, dynamic Macmillanism. What does it consist of? Snap decisions coming to nothing.
To give one or two examples parallel to the Bill, the great decision on defence, under which conscription was to be abolished in four years, defence costs cut by £300 million, one Minister sacked and another brought in, and within two years it is obvious that it cannot be done. We have the same with the business of the wage freeze, which I predict within six months will have petered out. Some wages will be stopped, while some will go up—a dreary piece of incompetence once again. The same is true of pensions, because there was nearly a decision to undertake a big reform. Then came a piece of Macmillanism. In a number of ways it was a clever piece of Macmillanism, because the right hon. Gentleman said "Look, boys, that is a bit dangerous, and there is not time". Let us be 'smarties' and outbid the Labour Party's long-term plans by bringing in a big short-term bribe which does not cost us anything".
That was the directive to the poor Minister—a big bribe to the pensioners which would cost the taxpayers nothing. This Bill is the result of his extremely ingenious efforts to combine the contradictory demand that we should give something to the pensioners which would cost the taxpayers nothing. We have got

something which costs the taxpayer nothing, but it is at the expense of the pensioner and the contributor.
I am sorry for the Minister. This Bill is to his discredit. He could have done a better job if he had had a free hand. I rather wish that he had resigned, as his right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton (Mr. Head) had the courage to resign when he was asked to do something which was totally opposed to his principles. The Minister did not resign, and he is carrying out the onerous job of piloting the Bill through the House.
I suggest, however, that he warned the Prime Minister that he could not expect many votes as a result of the Bill, because the electorate could see through it—and we can guarantee to make sure that the electorate does see through it in the months to come. It will not be forgotten after this evening. We shall be going round Britain every day and every week, simply reminding the people of the facts of the Bill, and that it is a narrow, mean and niggardly one.
There will be no need for any propaganda about the Bill; we simply need to adopt the coldest objectivity in describing to the constituents of all hon. Members opposite exactly what has been done for them. All we need do is to describe the Bill soberly and literally and to say, "That is exactly what has been done. It is a little piece of Tory arithmetic. Promise 10s.; take 5s. off for those whose need is the greatest, and another 2s. 4d. for those who smoke, and you will get a Tory promise in reality." We need only tell them that.
If I were a mere politician I should be delighted with the Bill, because it will damage the smart man who calculated it more than anything else that he has done. But I hate the Bill because it means that—for I hope not more than twelve months several—millions of our fellow countrymen will be condemned to continue to suffer gross social injustice, and in a large number of cases to remain on the edge of destitution. I hope that no politician in the House will be glad that that has happened. I am certainly not glad. I should have been far happier to see a Bill in which hon. Members opposite broke away and did something for the old-age pensioners. The Labour Party will have to do it next time.
All I would say to hon. Members opposite is that I wish on this occasion, as I wished at the time of Suez, that some of them had the courage of their convictions. They know quite well what this Bill is. They know quite well that 2s. 4d. for the man who is in receipt of National Assistance and who smokes is an outrage. But, except for one decent honourable Lady, they have sat there absolutely silent, conniving at this iniquity. I shall remember two things about the Bill—the courtesy of the Minister and the abject submissiveness of the Tory back benchers.

9.33 p.m.

Dr. King: I rarely disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman), but I disagree with his remark that we shall have to explain the Bill to the electors. I am certain that the old-age pensioners have already seen through the Measure. The Minister may have been instructed to provide a big bribe at no cost to the Treasury; I would only say that although it may be at no cost to the Treasury nobody will think that it is a big bribe to the old-age pensioners.
It is to be regretted that on a Third Reading debate all the compliments to the Minister should come from this side of the House. I would say that the personal compliments which have been paid to the Minister are very sincere. We have a tremendous admiration for the competence, skill and patience with which he has done his work in successive Ministries, and for the way in which he has dealt with the Bill; but, quite frankly, even from that point of view, the Opposition has very little to thank him for tonight.
It is true that the Bill is going through in a hurry. Earlier on we were discussing whether to proceed by way of Statutory Instrument. I would say that we might as well have conducted this whole procedure by way of Statutory Instrument, because we have not had a single concession from the Minister in the debates that have taken place.
It may be argued that he took advantage of the keenness of hon. Members on this side of the House to help the Bill through its various stages, and has conceded us very little. Why are we disappointed with the Bill? Why is it that we looked with hope to the Government,

after what the Minister said in the country during the Summer Recess? We imagined that there would be a bold Measure introduced on behalf of the old-age pensioners, but this Bill inflicts a poll tax on the poorest paid workers which I believe will discourage them in their attitude towards social insurance. With the last increase in the charges which we made I consider that we reached the limit as regards the lowest paid workers. The fact that some people in the country—including some members of the Health Service now in conflict with the Minister of Health—are getting just over £7 a week, and will have to pay 9s. 6d. out of that sum each week for insurance charges, is something which the Government should not be pleased about.
The Bill carries the poll tax principle too far. Much more seriously, it gives relief only of a pitiful and niggardly kind to 1,250,000 people who most need relief. The Bill is condemned because, at a time when the country, by and large, is doing very well, in spite of the economic crisis, all we can do for the poorest of the people, if they happen to be smokers, is to give them 2s. 8d. It is mean from that point of view, and because much of the benefit of its provisions is taken away by the Government before it comes into operation owing to the effect of the Rent Act. As I said in an earlier debate during the Committee stage, the only people who will get the maximum benefit have to be non-smokers and owner-occupiers.
I speak in this way with regret. I had looked forward to a much more generous Bill from a Minister whom I have always regarded as a very generous Minister of Pensions and National Insurance. Tonight we blame not the Minister not his Joint Parliamentary Secretaries, but the Government on whose behalf the right hon. Gentleman has piloted this Measure through the House.

9.37 p.m.

Mr. Marquand: Unfortunately, nothing we can do now can alter or improve this Bill. I would, however, express the hope that the time-table, about which we were informed by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, will be fulfilled. I hope that the plans are well laid and that the increased benefits, such as they are, which fall due to be paid under the provisions of this


Bill will be paid punctually. I hope that the increased benefits will give some comfort to the unemployed, the sick, the widows and the aged for whom we, as a House of Commons, have provided in the Bill.
It was last February when we asked for a Measure like this, or a Bill of some sort, to provide additional benefits for the pensioners, and I wish that the Government had listened to us then. I wish that the Government could have brought forward a Bill earlier. Then we might have had more time for our deliberations, because we have been hard-pressed during some of the debates. It was difficult always to frame Amendments and to be sure who would undertake to explain them. Had the Measure been introduced earlier the beneficiaries could have enjoyed the extra mony for Christmas. I do not think that there was any Parliamentary reason for not doing that, although, as I have already suggested, we might then have taken a day or two longer over our discussions. We have spent only three days on this Bill and we have shown what can be done by the House of Commons in expediting legislation when it feels that that is necessary. But we could have disposed of a Bill easily within a week or so had the Measure been introduced earlier, and it would not have been necessary to take away time spent on other important business during last Session. I regret very much that that was not done.
We do not grudge the time or the hard work which has been put into this Bill. We recognise the work of the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary and the way in which they have attended the debates and listened to all we had to say. But we are, none the less, doubly sorry that the right hon. Gentleman could not accept any of our proposals, not a single one. Not only did he not accept any but he did not come part way to meet us. He did not say, "We cannot make it 5s., but we will make it 1s." In a case of that sort, we would have accepted gratefully what had been offered, but there was not a single concession.
We had not gone far in our deliberations before we clearly understood why. The man to whom our thoughts were turning all the time during our debates on the Bill never put in an appearance. I refer to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury did appear for a fleeting moment. I see that he has appeared now for perhaps a further moment or two. They were the villains of the piece to whom we really wanted to talk.
We became convinced, as we looked at the Bill and heard the explanations given to us, that the real reason not only for the refusal of any Amendment but for the whole structure of the Bill, was the determination of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that not one extra penny from the Revenue must go this year for pensions or anything of that sort. The increases of benefits and pensions under the Bill were to be paid for by the contributors, and war pensions increases were to be provided by taking away the tobacco concession from the old people.
That was the plan, and that plan has been carried out. The greatest blemish in the Bill, in consequence, is that half the retirement pensioners will receive less than the benefit which is deemed appropriate for the unemployed. I say no more, because we have expressed ourselves at length about this matter already.
In spite of the structure of the Bill which, as I have already said, lays a heavy, regressive tax upon the workers, bears heavily upon the lower-paid workers and involves a sharp deprivation to certain types of pensioner, we want the unemployed, the sick and the old to get its benefits as soon as possible. That is why we have co-operated. I am quite confident that when the Bill reaches another place the same co-operation will be shown. There is no reason for the Minister to be anxious about the Bill's not going through Parliament in time to allow him to carry through his planned timetable.
It has been generally agreed that we have reached the end of the road with this Bill. This is a historic Bill, because it will be the last to be framed upon the old system. Everybody recognises that, in future, the flat rate benefit and contribution will be replaced by something different. I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) is correct in his understanding of the situation, whether he is right that the Minister has been refused permission to bring forward any plan of that kind. I cannot tell, but I hope that my hon. Friend is wrong and


that the right hon. Gentleman will still have his chance to bring forward a plan based upon a better structure.
We can then have what the British people ought to have now, a grand debate of the whole nation on the future of our national insurance for sickness, and unemployment, and on the kind of retirement pension which we ought to have for the future. There ought to be a grand debate of the whole nation in the sort of way there was after the publication of the Beveridge Report in the 1940s, when everybody was discussing ways and means of doing it and the various ways in which it might be applied.
Let us have that debate. We do not fear comparison for one moment. We have already produced the first outline of our plan; it will not be long before we can have a more finished document ready. If Government supporters will produce their plan we shall be delighted. Let us have it. Let us debate it. We hope that there may then be an agreed result.

9.45 p.m.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: My first word must be to express my thanks and those of my hon. Friends, the Joint Parliamentary Secretaries, to the House for the co-operation of both sides of the House in getting this Measure on its way to the Statute Book so speedily. I am grateful for the help that I have been given from both sides. I would say to the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman), who commented on the relatively few speeches from this side of the House, that it is sometimes the best way to get a Bill quickly through, which one wants to see got through, to refrain from even the most enthusiastic speeches in support of it which, whatever else they may do, consume time. Any party which has been in office and, dare I say, any party which has even the faintest hope of ever again being in office, knows perfectly well that what I am saying is true.
We shall certainly respond to the cooperation of the House by seeking, as the Joint Parliamentary Secretary said, to take all the necessary further steps as speedily as possible to carry out the outlined time-table to which my hon. Friend referred. We shall ask another place to deal with the matter as speedily as it

will be good enough to do. I hope very much that, if another place does do so, we shall be able to adhere to the dates I mentioned on Second Reading for the operation of the long-term benefits, the week of 27th January, with the short-term benefits and contributions operating in the following week.
That is a tremendous operation, and it is one which will place a very heavy burden on the staff of my Department at a time of year when it also has to compete with a high incidence of sickness. But we have taken the view, which I think is generally accepted in the House, that we ought to seek to operate the changes which Parliament approves much more speedily than has been possible on any previous occasion, in order that these improvements shall be in the hands of the beneficiaries as quickly as is possible.
However, I do not want the House to underestimate the magnitude of the operation. We shall proceed in due course by asking retirement pensioners and others to bring in their books to our offices for up-rating. An announcement will be made—and I hope no one will take what I am saying now as the announcement—after the Royal Assent, giving dates and times for that to be done. On previous occasions we have had the greatest assistance from the Press and the broadcasting and television authorities in making known to pensioners when in their own interests they should act. I hope we shall have that co-operation as in the past.
It would hardly be seemly at this last stage of the Bill were I—as I am bound to say I have been tempted to do by the speeches of one or two hon. Members opposite—to indulge in anything in the nature of a polemical reply. To one or two hon. Members who gave the views of some organisations, I would say only that our common experience in this House is that no changes ever wholly or completely satisfy such organisations. Whatever the changes, pressure groups—I use the term in no derogatory way—would have liked to see something better, but I believe that the great body of our population, including those directly affected, broadly regard these proposals as fair and reasonable, and as fairly and reasonably holding the balance between contributor and beneficiary.
I must say to the hon. Member for Coventry, East that his remarkable speculations as to developments within the machinery of Government were as unfounded as certain mathematical calculations he and I have also discussed. If indeed my orders had been to produce proposals which would cost the taxpayer nothing, then, as I pointed out in debate on the Third Schedule, I must have seriously disobeyed orders. Nevertheless, I thank the hon. Member for the sympathy he offered me, but must not take it by false pretences.
The hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) said we might well have used the procedure of Statutory Instrument. I would say in all seriousness that on this Bill we have had three days of most interesting and full discussion which would not have been possible under the Statutory Instrument procedure. My experience of this Bill leaves me still firmly convinced that for major changes of this kind the full Parliamentary process is the proper procedure.
The Bill now goes forward to another place. We have made our comments on it; I have made a great many, to which I do not propose to add now, and hon. Members have made others. There have been speculations as to its effect on other people and other events elsewhere. I can only say on behalf of my right hon. Friends that we send this Measure forward in the sincere belief that what we are doing is right.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

WAYS AND MEANS

Considered in Committee.

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

1. PROTECTIVE CUSTOMS DUTIES

Resolved,
That provision may be made, in place of that made by Part I of the Import Duties Act, 1932, for enabling goods imported into the United Kingdom to be charged with customs duties designed to give protection to United Kingdom goods or to confer preference on Commonwealth goods (and goods accorded the same privileges as Commonwealth goods); and the provision so made may supersede, in addition to Part I of the Import Duties Act, 1932, the provision for charging customs dudes which

is made by any of the enactments in the following list—

1. The Safeguarding of Industries Act, 1921.
2. Section four of the Finance Act, 1925, section five of the Finance Act, 1932, and section nine of the Finance Act, 1933 (which imposed the silk and artificial silk duties).
3. The Ottawa Agreements Act, 1932, section six of the Finance Act, 1934, and section eight of the Finance Act, 1935 (which imposed certain duties for the purpose of conferring imperial preference).
4. The Beef and Veal Customs Duties Act, 1937.
5. Subsection (4) of section three of the Eire (Confirmation of Agreements) Act, 1938 (which conferred power to impose duty on eggs or poultry from Eire in certain circumstances).
6. The Schedule to the Customs Tariff Act, 1876, so far as it relates to figs, fig cake, plums or raisins, and section three of the Customs and Inland Revenue Act, 1890 (which relates to currants).
7. Subsection (2) of section eighty-one of the Finance (1909–1910) Act, 1910 (which relates to chloroform and certain other articles containing or made from spirits.—[Mr. Powell.]

2. RETALIATORY CUSTOMS DUTIES

Resolved,
That provision may be made, in place of that made by Part II of the Import Duties Act, 1932, for enabling goods imported into the United Kingdom to be charged with customs duties designed to retaliate for discrimination against United Kingdom, colonial or other goods.—[Mr. Powell.]

3. GENERAL AND SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS IN CONNECTION WITH NEW CUSTOMS DUTIES.

Resolved,
That any Act of the present Session making provision for charging customs duties in place of that made by the Import Duties Act, 1932, may make provision—

(a) for prescribing a form of tariff for use for any customs purpose whether relating to the new duties to be charged under the Act or other duties;
(b) for securing a uniform system of Commonwealth preference for the new duties and other customs duties where preference is now given to Commonwealth goods and adapting the enactments relating to customs preferences to the provision made for the new duties;
(c) for extending to any customs duties any provision made for the new duties in relation to produce of the sea or goods produced or manufactured at sea;
(d) for exemptions, drawbacks and other reliefs from the new duties, for the administration of the new duties and of any such


relief and for constituting in that behalf a Board with the general function of giving assistance to Government departments concerned with the new duties and such other functions as may be conferred on it, and generally for any subordinate matters.—[Mr. Powell.]

Resolutions to be reported.

Report to be received Tomorrow; Committee to sit again Tomorrow.

TRUSTEE SAVINGS BANKS [MONEY]

Resolution reported,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to amend the law relating to trustee savings banks, it is expedient to authorise any increased charge which may fall on the Consolidated Fund under section thirty-six of the Trustee Savings Banks Act, 1954, if—

(a) the maximum rate of interest which may be fixed by order of the Treasury under subsection (2) of section twenty-seven of the Act of 1954 as the rate at which interest is to be paid or credited on sums standing too the credit of trustee savings banks in the Fund for the Banks for Savings is raised to a figure not exceeding three pounds two shillings and sixpense per cent.;
(b) there are credited to the mutual assistance account, and treated as interest credited to that account under section fifty-three of the Act of 1954, a sum not exceeding three hundred thousand pounds on the twenty-first day of May next, and thereafter sums equal to those by which the total interest credited half-yearly to trustee savings banks in the Fund for the Banks for Savings is reduced by fixing a special rate for any bank not participating in such mutual assistance schemes as may be referred to in the Act of the present Session;
(c) the Act of the present Session amends the law relating to trustee savings banks in any other respect.

Resolution agreed to.

SLAUGHTERHOUSES [MONEY]

Resolution reported,
That, far the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make provision with respect to slaughterhouses and knackers' yards and the slaughter of animals, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

(a) any expenses incurred under the said Act by any government department;
(b) any increase attributable to the provisions of the said Act in the sums payable out of moneys so provided under Part I of the Local Government Act, 1948, or the Local Government (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act, 1954, as amended by the Valuation and Rating (Scotland) Act, 1956.

Resolution agreed to.

LAND, SWANBRIDGE (MR. J. M. DAVIDSON)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Colonel J. H. Harrison.]

9.52 p.m.

Mr. Raymond Gower: The case which I wish to raise tonight, affecting my constituent, Mr. J. M. Davidson, of High Trees, Swanbridge, in the County of Glamorgan, has a very long history. It started in January, 1949, when Mr. Davidson learned that about nine-and-a-half acres of freehold land at Swan-bridge was for sale. Part of this land had been requisitioned by the Ministry of Agriculture in March, 1941, and had been farmed by the Farms Department of the Glamorgan County Agricultural Executive Committee since that date.
I wish to emphasise that at that time Mr. Davidson could be regarded only as an amateur or a novice. He went into this business intending to grow market garden crops, soft fruit and flowers. Quite sensibly, he sought the advice of the National Agricultural Advisory Service, which is run by my hon. Friend's Department, and he was told by the Service that the land was in good heart and suitable for the purpose which he had in mind. It seems, also, that this contention was made by the agricultural committee itself, and Mr. Davidson was required to pay a sum of money to meet the Ministry's claim for the value of un-exhausted superphosphate. I am also told that he was advised that he had no claim against the Ministry under the compensation provisions of the Defence Act, 1939, owing to the supposedly good condition of the land.
There are two reasons, I respectfully submit, that we may doubt whether the land was, in fact, in good heart when he first contemplated his purchase.
I have made some inquiries about this land and have learned from persons closely acquainted with it that it certainly was not in good heart before the war, and certainly was not in good heart at the time of its acquisition by the Ministry in 1941. A friend of mine who owned adjacent land in Swanbridge, in 1939, has told me quite recently that in that year the land now occupied by Mr. Davidson was in very poor condition.
My hon. Friend may assert on behalf of the Ministry that during the years of the Ministry's occupation, through its agents, the Glamorgan Agricultural Executive Committee, the land was greatly improved, but it is doubtful whether this can be accepted, because in March, 1952, Mr. Davidson, who had proceeded with the purchase in May, 1949, again sought the advice of the National Agricultural Advisory Service. On this occasion he received a different opinion from that Service, and received a letter which stated:
The land since the beginning of the war has been constantly overcropped and the texture and organic contents reduced to a dangerously low level.
This was, indeed, difficult to reconcile with the earlier contentions of the Ministry's agents and, indeed, of the Advisory Service of the Ministry that the land was in good heart. It is a pity that my constituent did not receive this advice sooner, before he had committed himself and his wife to this venture.
At this stage, my hon. Friend may seek refuge in the ancient legal adage of caveat emptor—let the buyer beware. That may be good advice when two persons are concerned in a commercial transaction, but in the circumstances that I have tried to outline, where a great and powerful Department of State passes on requisitioned land to a person who reveals his lack of knowledge by relying on an Advisory Service run by that Department of State, I respectfully submit that there is upon the Department an extraordinary duty transcending the strict legal obligation existing between two people; an extraordinary duty to make sure that it does not "sell a pup" to the purchaser.
My constituent contends, and has always contended, that he was, in fact, "sold a pup" by the Ministry through its agents; that he was induced to purchase this piece of land by the inaccurate representations of the vendors, who were the agents for the Ministry, and that he was misled into purchasing the land by the original advice given by the Ministry's own Advisory Service. I believe that these facts and circumstances alone merit the fullest public inquiry—

Mr. John Mackie: Can the hon. Gentleman give any figure of the rate of purchase for the land—the year's purchase of the tenancy?

Mr. Gower: Not now. The figures of the purchase, and so on, are well known to my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas) will give facts to supplement what I have to say.
As the Parliamentary Secretary is aware, the Ministry and my constituent later became involved in certain legal and administrative conflicts. Mr. Davidson's holding was placed under supervision in 1953. Because of the poor condition of the land when he acquired it, his financial position had naturally deteriorated. I can assure the House that having his holding placed under supervision was a very serious financial blow to Mr. Davidson, but I really wonder how anybody could be expected to have the land effectively farmed in January, 1953, when it was placed under supervision, when such an adverse opinion of the condition of the land had been expressed by the Ministry's own Advisory Service only a year earlier.
My hon. Friend is aware that there were court proceedings, in which Mr. Davidson was sued by the Ministry for certain materials supplied and certain work alleged to have been carried out.

It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Hughes-Young.]

Mr. Gower: My constituent counterclaimed for what he contended to be the misrepresentation which induced him to acquire this land. It would be improper, in this debate, for me to speak about the merits of the judgment, except this. It is a fact that in the court proceedings certain evidence was adduced, and among that evidence were certain signatures on receipts for certain commodities supplied to Mr. Davidson. He has contended throughout that some of these things were not supplied to him, and he asserted in the court proceedings, and still asserts, that some of the signatures were forgeries.
It is very interesting that the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas) and I asked my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister to make an inquiry into the circumstances in which these documents were signed.


My hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend have refused to do this, but I have obtained a copy of the report of the Home Office Forensic Laboratory, South Wales and Monmouthshire area, and I propose to read that to the House. It is dated 19th February, 1955, and it says:
It is abundantly clear from the photographs and also from the specimens given to the police that Davidson is not skilled in the use of a pen and for this reason it would not be beyond the skill of a forger of moderate ability to forge the two questioned signatures and leave little trace of having done so.
It goes on to say:
There are also certain differences between the letter design of the questioned signatures and the letter design of the signatures attributed to Davidson.
I respectfully submit to my hon. Friend that even on the basis of that original letter this is a case for the most complete inquiry. My hon. Friend told the hon. Member for Cardiff, West and myself last week at Question Time that it would be improper to reveal police information to this House. I submit that that is a most ludicrous statement. Can we imagine that in a case tried in the High Court of Justice the jury would not see evidence of this kind? Does my hon. Friend suggest for a moment that they would assume, without seeing documents of this kind, the guilt or otherwise of the defendant or the prisoner?
I submit that it is not improper that this House, which, after all, is in many ways the supreme court of the realm, should have cognisance of such important information as this. We would be neglecting our duty as Members of the House if we did not assure my hon. Friend that we intend to press him on this point, not only tonight but, if he cannot give us some satisfactory assurance, again and again.
In conclusion—because I want the hon. Member for Cardiff, West to have an opportunity of making some supplementary remarks—I submit that, in the first place, my constituent was induced by misrepresentation, either deliberate or otherwise, to acquire this land. He acquired it in good faith as a person inexperienced in agriculture. It was land which was held out by the Ministry's own Advisory Service to be in good heart. It was not in good heart, on the evidence of that same Advisory Service four years later. Secondly, the court proceedings

were in some degree influenced by evidence which the report of the forensic laboratory shows to be at best extremely suspect.
I call upon my hon. Friend to reverse his previous decision and say that he or his right hon. Friend will institute the most complete inquiry into these unusual facts.

10.5 p.m.

Mr. George Thomas: I rise to support the hon. Member for Barry (Mr. Gower) because this is a case which has caused considerable anxiety throughout South Wales. We are deeply grateful to the Western Mail and South Wales Echo for the considerable publicity they have given to this little man who is fighting a Government Department.
I regard it as one of the most serious cases it has been my responsibility to handle. The Minister will know that Mr. Davidson has for the past four years alleged that his Department submitted to the County Court at Cardiff documents which, he warned them, had forged signatures upon them. He warned the Department's solicitor, but none the less they were submitted to and accepted by the court as evidence. Now the Parliamentary Secretary may say, "These were not important documents." I do not care what they were. If they were used in evidence and accepted by the court in proving anything against Mr. Davidson then a most serious position prevails.
From time to time, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Barry and I have, by Questions in this House, pursued this very matter. All the time the Minister has sheltered behind his undoubted authority and refused to reveal the facts. He invited us to meet him privately. On 7th November I received a letter from the Parliamentary Secretary. I will read the germane part of it to the House:
I promised to write to let you know the result of the investigations which the police have been making into the allegations made by Mr. J. M. Davidson. I am glad to be able to say that the thorough investigations by the police, while revealing"—
I ask the House to note these words—
some lack of uniformity in the signatures on the documents, have established beyond question that there is no basis for the continuance of the investigations.
The person against whom the allegations are made is the Minister—his Department—and the Minister is being


judge and jury and defendant in this matter. Surely, if a citizen of the realm maintains that his name was forged upon a document used by the Ministry of Agriculture, he has a right to know whether the police agree or not after their investigation. I should have thought that it was an elementary right which anyone has that a Government Department shall publish a police report which concerns its activities and not Mr. Davidson's. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will make clear to the House his attitude beyond a peradventure on this question. My last point, because I know that the Minister will want full time to reply, is this. I have in my hand a letter which Mr. Davidson sent to me, one, I suppose, of hundreds that I have received from this gentleman during the past few years. The hon. Member for Barry knows that if Mr. Davidson was not competent at the pen before he is very competent now. He writes with a most characteristic handwriting, and clear handwriting. I never need to open his letters to me to know whose writing it is. I look at the envelope and I understand that Mr. Davidson is once again campaigning.
This House is the champion of the people's liberties. Over Crichel Down both sides of the House showed that they were prepared to take strong action. I say that this little man, who has been fighting a lone battle through these years, has a right to hear from the Minister tonight that he is willing to allow the fullest investigation into Mr. Davidson's charges that the Department has been found guilty by the police, that it did use such documents in a court of law. I take it that the Minister's letter to me, when he says that there is "lack of uniformity", confirms that there was irregularity. According to my knowledge of the English language, "irregularity" is synonymous with "lack of uniformity."
I earnestly hope that the Minister will give not only to the hon. Member for Barry and myself, but to the wider public in South Wales, a complete answer upon this disturbing case.

10.10 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. J. B. Godber): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Barry (Mr. Gower) for raising this matter tonight and I am grateful to him and to the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr.

G. Thomas) for speaking as frankly as they have done on this occasion. I realise the feelings that they hold in this matter, but I shall seek to show in the course of my remarks that I do not think their strictures justified. Over a long time, Mr. Davidson has raised a whole series of allegations and, from time to time, some of them have been brought up in the House. Although the case has dragged on for several years, we have not previously had an opportunity of reviewing it in its entirety in a debate such as this, and I am glad that there is this opportunity tonight.
I should like to put the matter into perspective. The case centres mainly upon 3½ acres of agricultural land which Mr. Davidson bought privately at a time when it was under requisition by the Glamorgan Agricultural Executive Committee. In view of statements published in the Western Mail on the 12th of this month referring to irregularities in land sale signatures, I should like to make it quite clear that, as I said in reply to a supplementary question only last Monday, the Ministry of Agriculture did not sell this or any other land to Mr. Davidson. Any dispute over signatures is confined to some documents concerning some ploughing and cultivations, and I shall deal fully with that later on.
It may be convenient if I recapitulate a little and summarise Mr. Davidson's grievances collectively before I come to them individually. The Glamorgan A.E.C. had promised that, if Mr. Davidson succeeded in buying the land, it would derequisition it to him. I emphasise that because my hon. Friend the Member for Barry made a point claiming that we had induced Mr. Davidson to buy the land. That is very far from the truth. We took no steps to encourage him. The original letter from Mr. Davidson, dated 7th February, 1949, which I have in my hand, says:
Dear Sir, I am writing to find out whether you would be prepared to release the field of approximately 3½ acres on the Evans Estate at Swanbridge, Glam., which I understand you hold. I have been searching around for horticultural purposes for the past couple of years, and the Evans Estate are prepared to sell me this plot of land and provided I am able to obtain possession I am prepared to buy it.
That was the original request, and that was the request we acceded to. The Committee fully honoured its undertaking to derequisition, and Mr. Davidson, on his part, fulfilled an agreement


to pay £10 for the unexhausted manurial value, to which my hon. Friend referred. All this was in 1949.
Early in 1953, nearly four years after he had entered into possession, Mr. Davidson was placed under supervision for bad husbandry of this and other land. In the same year, he alleged that the A.E.C. had misrepresented the condition of the derequisitioned land, had not paid heed to his representations against the proposal to place him under supervision, and had been tardy in executing contract cultivation. He contended also that officers of the National Agricultural Advisory Service gave him conflicting advice, and that an officer of the Agricultural Land Service adopted an unreasonable attitude. He complained that our officers had neglected to deal with his drainage and water supply schemes, alleging also that some contract work undertaken by the Committee's machinery department was incomplete and otherwise unsatisfactory, and that his signature had been forged on certain of the contract documents.
Here then is what the Western Mail described as "the multifariousness" of Mr. Davidson's allegations. The complaints that have been made are wide in range, and, if substantiated, would reflect seriously not only on the Glamorgan A.E.C., but on a wide range of officials. A picture has been painted of a lone battle by an individual who appears convinced that the forces of authority have been mobilised against him.
I hope that I shall be able to demonstrate to the satisfaction of hon. Members that sympathy and consideration to the individual have not been lacking in this instance. I emphasise that in view of the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Barry and the hon. Member for Cardiff, West.
Indeed, I am constrained to suggest that in this case my hon. Friend has afforded a very necessary opportunity for protection of quite another kind which Ministers can and should afford both to voluntary workers and civil servants who discharge their policies and who may be subject—as in this case I suggest—to repeated and unjust attacks on their conduct, efficiency and integrity. I emphasise that very strongly.
I should like to deal briefly with a number of allegations which have been

made before turning to the main points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Barry. It is simply not true to say that the Glamorgan Committee did not pay heed to Mr. Davidson's representations against its proposal to place him under supervision. The Committee arranged a meeting to hear his representations, but he did not turn up. It gave him a second opportunity and when he attended it fully considered all he had to say. The supervision order was finally withdrawn nearly two years ago.
Nor is there any substance in the suggestion that officials were dilatory in dealing with rabbit infestation on or near Mr. Davidson's land. It was first necessary to reach agreement with British railways to clear rabbits in an adjoining halt, and later surveys disclosed that there was no longer any heavy infestation.
Again, requests for machinery contract services must be dealt with in rotation, and Mr. Davidson's applications were handled as soon as possible after they had been received. I only wish that Mr. Davidson had settled our accounts as quickly as we responded to his calls for services. In fact, his accounts, totalling over £90, have never been paid.
Turning to the question of conflicting advice, Mr. Davidson contends that on taking possession he was advised to plant a certain area with fruit trees, but that on a later visit he was advised to plant the trees elsewhere. This is true, but an interval of at least two years elapsed between the visits, and, judging from the conditions found on the second visit, Mr. Davidson had not prepared the land in accordance with advice given at the first visit. As a result, certain perennial weeds had grown up and were choking the young trees. Hence the advice to replant them elsewhere.
I will now deal with the condition of the land at the time it was derequisitioned. Mr. Davidson has alleged that the A.E.C. undertook to leave it in a clean state and failed to do so. This allegation is scarcely consistent with the fact that when this land was derequisitioned it was carrying a good crop of broccoli. After this crop had been cleared, Mr. Davidson asked the A.E.C. to pull and carry away all the stumps and to plough the land. The Committee met this request, even though normal farming practice is to plough in the stumps. There appears to have been some


misunderstanding about who was to pay for the ploughing, but Mr. Davidson has no cause for complaint, because the Committee later gave him the benefit of the doubt and agreed not to charge him for it.
The more controversial question is the level of fertility in the soil at the time of derequisition. I advisedly say "controversial", because the land was derequisitioned as far back as 1949, and Mr. Davidson did not lodge his complaint until 1953. It is virtually impossible to reconstruct the condition of land after an interval of that kind. We can speak only from the testimony of officers concerned, who recollect that it was in reasonably good heart and carrying, as I have said earlier, a good crop of broccoli. Our only firm evidence is a soil analysis, the results of which were sent to Mr. Davidson two months after the land had been derequisitioned in 1949. This analysis revealed no chemical deficiency—I emphasise that to my hon. Friend—and thus testifies to the technical thoroughness with which the A.E.C. had been applying fertilisers while the land had been under requisition. On the other hand, the analysis did suggest some organic deficiency, which could only be expected, where, as in this case, the land had been under arable crops since the early years of the war.
My hon. Friend has referred to an advisory letter sent to Mr. Davidson in 1952 when he himself had been managing the land for nearly three years The House may agree that the soil analysis which I have described, taken in 1949, is really more relevant to the condition of the land at the time that it was derequisitioned. That really is the position. We cannot say that in 1949 the land was bad because in 1952 certain criticisms were made.
Before leaving this particular allegation, I want to make two important points with which, I think, hon. Members would readily agree. The first is that land which may be handed over in reasonable condition for arable agricultural cultivation may require special preparation before, as in this case, it is used for soft fruit or horticultural production. The two things are different. Indeed, the National Agricultural Advisory Service gave Mr. Davidson detailed written advice to that effect shortly after he took over. I emphasise that strongly, because

it is an important point which must be borne in mind.
Secondly, when taking over land, it is normal to employ a valuer. Mr. Davidson did not do so. If he had done, this dispute would never have arisen. I am sorry that he did not do so, for we should then have had a clear record.
That brings me to the allegation which has obviously caused both my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Cardiff, West the most disquiet. I refer to the allegation that Mr. Davidson's signature was forged on a contract sheet and job cards used for some contract operations on his land. These operations were undertaken by the A.E.C.'s machinery department during May, 1950. They consisted of some ploughing, cultivating, harrowing and rolling and the charge for these operations was £9 11s. 2d. This sum formed part of the unpaid accounts which I have already mentioned and which totalled £90 11s. 4d.
Having failed to obtain settlement from Mr. Davidson, we took legal action to recover the debt. The case was heard in the Cardiff Court on 13th January, 1954, and we were awarded judgment with costs. I must make the point that we never succeeded in obtaining payment and when, two years later, my hon. Friend the Member for Barry drew our attention to Mr. Davidson's financial plight, we obtained special authority from the Treasury to waive the entire debt as an act of grace. That includes the debt to which the disputed signatures refer. I stress this point because I should not like the House to be under any illusion on two points about the work the signatures for which are in dispute.
First, it has never been suggested in any quarter that the work was not done. We have had suggestions of forgery, but we have had no suggestions that the work itself was not done. Secondly, the fact is beyond question that although Mr. Davidson has had the full benefit of this work, he has never paid for it.
Mr. Davidson first questioned the signatures on the documents during the court proceedings. It would not be proper for me to comment on those proceedings. It is sufficient to say that the court did not find for Mr. Davidson. He then went to the Cardiff City Police, who investigated his allegations, and I would say that the fact that the police took no further action speaks for itself. The police reached their


conclusions after the forensic science laboratory had examined photostat copies of the disputed signatures. We have had the report read out to us already tonight.
Earlier this year, it was put to me that the laboratory could form a satisfactory opinion only by examining the original documents instead of photostat copies and on my instructions these were put at the disposal of the Cardiff City Police so that everything could be done to test the allegations of forgery. The conduct of the necessary investigations and the question whether criminal proceedings should be taken as a consequence of Mr. Davidson's allegations was a matter entirely for the chief constable. After completing further inquiries, he decided that there was no justification for further police proceedings.
In reply to a Question as recently as 18th November, I made it clear that it would be improper for us to disclose the police reports. I think this is the point with which the hon. Members were concerned, but I do not propose to deal any further with that because, once again, it is exclusively a matter for the chief constable and is not one with which I or my Ministry can be concerned.

Mr. G. Thomas: Quite unfair.

Mr. Godber: That is a ruling from which I cannot depart.
It may be suggested that there are civil or moral issues involved and that a Government Department should not obtain payment for services except on the basis of properly completed contract documents. There is even now no proof—I emphasise this—that the documents in this case were not properly completed, and in any event, as I said earlier, we have not obtained any payment for these services, notwithstanding that the work was done; no evidence has been produced by Mr. Davidson that the work was not done. I do not think there is any question that the work was done, whatever he may say about the signatures.
To sum up, I must emphasise as strongly as I can that we are dealing here with the question of contract work costing in all less than £10. The work was done, and the taxpayer, not Mr. Davidson, has had to pay for it. In these circumstances, any dispute over signatures really leads us nowhere.
I want to make it clear beyond all doubt, first, that after the most careful investigation, not by the Ministry but by the police, there is no proof at all of forgery. Secondly, even if there were, Mr. Davidson would not be one whit better off. The work was done and it was done at no cost to him. Finally, it is ludicrous to suggest that the allegations relating to the signatures, or, indeed, any of the other charges, have any bearing whatsoever on Mr. Davidson's present position.
I hope my hon. Friend will appreciate from what I have said that the charges which have been bandied about so wildly in certain quarters—I am not referring to hon. Members—are simply grotesque and do not stand up to examination. Much time has been spent by many people, including my right hon. Friend himself, my predecessor in my present office and myself, in trying to convince Mr. Davidson that his allegations are groundless—I regret to say, to no avail.
I am, therefore, particularly grateful for this opportunity to put the whole affair into its proper perspective, and I hope Mr. Davidson in his own interests will now cease to follow a course which really is leading him nowhere and for which, I assure the House, there is no justification at all.

Mr. Gower: There is one matter which my hon. Friend has not, to my mind, satisfactorily explained—the report of his own advisory service that the land, since the beginning of the war, has been constantly over-cropped. Does not my hon. Friend think that really needs greater explanation than he has given?

Mr. Godber: I thought I had dealt with that. The land was carrying a good crop at the time we left it, but a horticultural crop would need certain additional ingredients of an organic nature—I am speaking with some technical knowledge of this—to be successful for horticultural purposes—ingredients which, of course, were not necessary for the purpose for which we had been using it. For horticultural purposes it should have had those additional ingredients. It was Mr. Davidson and not the Ministry who wished to use it for horticultural purposes, and I think it was his duty to put those ingredients in.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Ten o'clock.